


Recordatus Caritate

by Dlohov14



Category: Underworld (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Spoilers for Blood Wars
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-03
Updated: 2017-09-12
Packaged: 2018-11-08 10:56:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 15
Words: 32,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11080125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dlohov14/pseuds/Dlohov14
Summary: Story begins at the end of Blood Wars. Selene is now one of the new leaders of the last two vampire covens. With Eve's return, will she finally make peace with the loss of Michael? Or will she use her new position to avenge his death? The lycans are scattered again without a leader, but not for long. A new human army is formed. Michael is alive and somehow, he's now on their side.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Sadly, I don't own Underworld or any of its beautiful characters.

**Chapter 1 - Prologue**

Marius can feel the restlessness that has been weighing down his lycan horde lately. Everyone was twitchy, angry about something and on their feet almost all of the time. There has been more combat fighting for the sake of just feeling like they're in the battlefield.  _Yes, because all of you are suddenly the world's greatest warriors._

Requiring them to sit and wait wasn't a reasonable thing to ask anymore. Not when they've tasted victory after victory, something their kind was not used to having.

The young ones are especially the most impatient.  _And the most arrogant._  In fact this sparring bout he's been forced to watch since early afternoon was started by Odian, one of the newly turned lycans. Lucian would have never allowed such unnecessary boisterous display even if it's only for entertainment.  _"You are not slaves anymore. Do not act like one," the lycan leader used to remind them._

But Lucian died along with his dignified leadership. He had always been too soft, too close-minded. Too much like his masters. With their tasteful lifestyles and elaborately styled garbs for warfare, it was no surprise Lucian inherited the self-absorbed ways of living just like his masters. He lived both the lives of a slave and that of a master. But he was no leader.

_I am._

Movement from the backdrop of the roars and combat cut his thoughts short.  _At last._

He was on her back faster than a normal lycan. Alexia almost shrieks as he pulls her to him from behind.

"You need to be more careful," Marius whispers to his lover's cheek. He then pins her to one of their weaponry cargos.

Forced to wait for her until twilight for news of Selene's whereabouts, he was left even more disappointed of what she came to deliver.

_"Have you found Selene?"_

_"Yes. She is heading for the Nordic coven."_

* * *

After Alexia leaves, Marius then retreats to his private quarters. If one can call it that. The vampires' private quarters are much more grand and elegant, befitting the masters of the house. The view from where he's sitting is neither. But he's never felt more in control and powerful in his life. 

There was something riveting – almost comforting – about watching a man hanged upside down.

Michael was too precious for Marius. One can say he's become obsessed. And why not? He's the only known survivor of both species' lethal bites. He's the first of his kind therefore the most powerful and yet...he was just a mortal.

That's what he hates about more than anything else.

Michael was just a  _fucking_  mortal. Legend or not, a distant descendant of Alexander Corvinus had no right to be...more. Not when others like him and Lucian had lived longer lives, were stronger not because of blood ties but because life gave them shit and they fought back, over and over again. All their lives. And now they welcome war like an old friend.

Oh dear Lucian... If only you can see me now. _I am about to do something you have only ever dreamed about. I'm going to give that one great victory you promised our kind so long ago, one you weren't able to deliver._

 _No matter. You did enough, brother._ Marius smiles as he watches Lucian's greatest achievement. Yes, Michael was too precious to him. He was his kin.

 _Half kin,_  the voice inside Marius' head argues.  _He was also marked by your enemy. Don't you dare forget that._

"Everything's set, Marius," Odian announces with a flashing grin as he enters his chambers. There was even no proper door nor a servant to knock on it, to introduce someone before the master of the house.

"Good. I'm already bored to death," he replies dryly as he dismissed the lad with a wave of his hand. He turns his attention back to Michael. The slit part of his neck is still dripping with the last few drops of his blood. The once great hybrid was good as dead.

_It's a pity you don't even get to see your daughter. That is, if you even know about her._

He kneels to whisper to his face, "I have to go now. I hate to leave you like this. Yes, I wish you can come and see her too." He takes a pause.  _I wish you can come and see how I kill your precious vampire lover. With my bare hands, your very own blood flowing through my veins._

_Then I will drink your daughter's blood dry as I did yours._

Marius smiles again, a wider one this time. His elongated fangs are now visible and his eyes become the yellowish hue it turns into when he's in his lycan form. Lifting one finger, he caresses Michael's cheek, an action so in contrast to what he was feeling; devoid of emotion. Except bitterness.

"Don't worry, Selene misses you just as much. I promise I'll come back…with her body. A rightful gift in return for yours."

_Only then will I burn your bodies together. See? I have manners and know the tragedy of forbidden love only too well. You'll be reunited soon and then you shall thank me._

And with that, he leaves with over a hundred, almost a thousand lycans; armed and ready to kill.

_The Nordic coven. Of all the places on earth..._

It's going to be a long, cold night.


	2. Reveille

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sadly, I don't own Underworld nor any of its beautiful characters.
> 
> Disclaimer of anything and everything, especially for that one wonderful line preceding one of the most wonderful scenes from the second novelization. It's included in this chapter. I will forever wonder why it never made it to the big screen.

He dreamt of her again. This time she was closer to him. So much closer.

They were making love.

Her normally brown orbs were now strikingly the coldest shade of blue he's ever seen. But as the said eyes looked up into his own, he felt such contrasting  _warmth_. She closes them again with a sigh then bites on her lower lip with one elongated fang, keeping a moan from escaping.

Michael was content watching her like this.

Brushing off her short hair and cupping her face with the hand not holding her waist, he pulls her to him for a deep kiss. They were molding into one. She comes up for air a moment later and was now openly moaning his name to his mouth, neck, and cheek, as he rains down more kisses on her smooth skin…skin he's only allowed to  _see_ from afar in his previous dreams… skin _he's now suddenly devouring…_

They have unknowingly set a rhythm. Slow, fast. Slow, fast. Fast. Steady. He was sweating all over that the tight grip she has on his upper arms was slipping. She giggles slightly as she grabs onto his shoulders and back instead and he felt his heart ache with longing.

_Please don't wake up._

She tugged at his damp hair, seeking his mouth again, silently asking him to  _do_   _more_  in the bruising kiss she gave him. He was more than willing to oblige as he started pounding harder into her, rewarded him with a frustrated and particularly loud whimper, but then he stops; a thought occurs to him. 

_A woman like her would love being on top._

So just when he thinks she couldn't take anymore of his thrusts, he flips them over.

He let her gasp in surprise for a second, and then he was rocking into her again, thrusting upward more slowly but deeply as he held her by the hips. She balances herself by pushing her hands against his chest, hair all over his face now as she bounced atop him.

Somewhere in the back of his mind he thinks this wasn't right. He wonders why he's allowed such a sweet escape from reality… _I don't even know your name._

" _You don't need much of anything, do you?"_

His own words from earlier rang in his mind. He takes a pause.  _How can there be something he remembers from earlier when he was still dreaming now?_

"Michael," she whispers, taking him back to the present. The present dream. One finger touches his chin, lightly tracing his infamous cleft. She's looking into his eyes again, this time from above him. Her eyes slowly return to their soft brown. She gives him a smile.

He decides, there and then, that he's utterly,  _maddeningly_  in love with her.

"You," she lets out suddenly, cutting through his thoughts for the second time. She bits her lip again, hesitant, and looking so much like she wanted to take back what she just said. A slip of the tongue.

Disoriented from what they were doing, from  _her_ , he replies, "What?"

She averts her eyes from him and looks down for a moment, almost shy. She clears her throat and steadies herself with her hands curling back on his chest. A puff of breath and then slowly: "I don't need much of anything except  _you_."

Then he wakes up.

He catches the last tune of the Reveille before it was fading away like a silent echo. It's another day on the field.


	3. The Hand of The Queen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sadly, I don't own Underworld nor any of its beautiful characters. Though I'd like nothing more than own the beautiful cinnamon roll that is Bradley James. And I'm sorry for the ASoIaF/GoT references...or not.

Varga was a despicable man. Oh, he knew of the whispers behind his back and more often than not, he agrees with what they had to say. If he himself had the authority he would sentence himself to die, and to die a painfully terrible death. Public execution should do. Of course he'd still choose the touch of steel over the burn of the sun. Even he wasn't  _that_  brave. Either way, his obliteration was the only thing the great vampire council could possibly do to rectify the situation. The situation being the murder of twenty young Death Dealers.

The problem was he didn't have the authority, nor the right to have a say of what type of punishment was given to him. The one other person more despised than Varga (that is, until two moons ago), did have  _that_  power.

"Stop," Selene's voice was emotionless like always, but all the same it commanded attention. And admiration. Never mind what she had to say, everyone in any room was always ready to hear it.

Cassius reluctantly stops what seems to be his nth recount of Varga's  _heinous_  crime.

"Thank you." Selene awkwardly nods her head toward the older vampire. She wasn't popular for being polite.

"This is a trial. A two-way discourse of how to go about..things. Now, as much as I love hearing the important  _retellings_  from the important people over here, a different perspective would be nice. You're the one being tried after all and yet I haven't heard you speak a word."

_Neither have you,_ he wanted to say, eyes fixed solely on her. There aren't that many men who could look at her in the eye without being intimidated. And Varga wasn't at all intimidated by Selene. "I deserve any horrible fate that befalls me."

"No," Selene insists. "You don't. There's always a reason why everybody does the things they do."

"I killed twenty innocent people. Raw recruits, reluctant to fight or even  _practice_  from the start. They were  _my_  students."

"That's good."

"What?" He says, taken aback.

"You keep count."A pause and then: "It's good that you do. Do you know that most killers don't?  _I don't,_ Selene muses. "And you said  _people_."

Varga was looking at her like he was seeing her for the first time.

"I did."

"It's nice for everyone to be reminded of that fact every now and then."

The audience began to look at one another and murmured among themselves after her short pause.

"Selene, I think we should proceed–" Cassius tries to intervene once again.

"Why did you do it?" She continues, louder this time, her piercing gaze challenging him. "Semira was the one who gave the command but it was you who pulled the trigger. Multiple times. I wanted to kill you then. Never mind that I was lying on the floor, paralyzed and good as dead, no, you also had to go pull a mass murder stunt in front of me! By rights, I should kill you myself."

Varga's head lowered, cutting eye contact for the first time.

"But she won't."

Nobody saw Eve entered the room. Nonetheless her presence was always welcomed warmly. The girl who had the face of a young goddess – so much like her mother's – but with the eyes of a stranger. Fortunate still, many would argue, to have none of Selene's cold outward bearing. " _She must have taken after her father..." "What? No!" "A_ sweet _and gentle lycan? Why, never been heard of!"_ Like Varga, Eve has her fair share of whisperers. The whisperers call her  _"princess"_  to her face and  _"monster"_  or  _"an outright abomination"_  when she's got her back turned.

"I won't," Selene agrees, softening now, meeting her daughter's eyes across the room. "But," she starts again, addressing Varga.

"Why can't you just answer the question?" She heard her words as though spoken by someone else, from a past she can't quite let go.  _Probably never will._  She poured her heart out to Michael that night. In all the ways a woman like her can. Still, she didn't know why she'd opened up the way she did and why he pushed her to do so. Until today.

Varga didn't remind Selene of Michael. He reminded her of herself.

Selene glances back at her daughter again, now seated beside David. She gives her a small but reassuring smile, _mother's got this one, love,_  and an uncharacteristic wink. Eve smiles openly at her.

"I did it because I…I loved her." Varga lets out at last. "I suppose...It's pathetic, I know. She never did return any of my…" he trails off, clearly uncomfortable. "Anyway, she respected me. Trusted me. I did everything she wanted me to do because it made her…happy. In the most twisted way I think she was. I hope she was," but he sounded tired instead of hopeful. "And she embodies someone I thought I might never see again in a leader. Believe it or not, she had been a great one." This time it was Varga challenging Selene. "There's a reason why out of all the covens, this one survived and held on much stronger even when all the others were left to ruins. But I never imagined her as...a killer. It was the first time she asked me to do such a thing."

The whole room was so quiet as the great Death Dealer's confession was just sinking in.

"You say you loved her but you turned against her the moment David claimed he was the rightful heir of the house you serve."

"I am nothing if not loyal." His answer came easily, though with more conviction. "You, yourself, know that."

"Cut the bullshit. That won't work on me."

_Damn, she's good,_ Varga thinks. He takes a deep breath. "I planned to set her free once I–" he stops, and surprises himself as much as everyone else when he begins to laugh. "–I actually thought we could have run away together. Deep inside I knew she wouldn't have agreed to it. But it was a wonderful thought to hold on to in the middle of a raging war." When he looks at Selene this time, it was pure sadness she saw in his eyes.

But it was telling her of something more.  _The same thing everyone's gazes told her all the time. There she is, the great Death Dealer who loved a_ lycan _. How miserable can her life be?_

Gone was the hard, unfeeling soldier.  _As I know only too well._

Varga then turned to David, an amused smile suddenly on his face. "I am forever grateful, and in your debt, for sparing me from that inevitable rejection."

The lie was easy to tell and one that Selene has used so many times before. Dark sarcasm to mask how one truly feels. Yes, the wall she's created to separate herself from the world wasn't only made of ice.

But her heart was breaking for him. Forbidden love is a tragedy itself but Michael loved her.

_And damn it, he loved her so much._  She was aware of this as she was very much aware of her own existence. He made sure she did. He heard her heartbeat in return, and tasted her blood. Without warning, her thoughts stray back to the second time she almost lost him, remembering how he looked at her then.

_Michael's adoring gaze made Selene uncomfortable. Nothing in her experience had prepared her for a moment like this. She had no idea how to respond._

He's alive, _she reminded herself._ That's what matters.  _Her detached expression failed to convey the overwhelming relief she experienced deep inside. For a few moments there, as Michael was slipping away from her, she had felt utterly bereft and alone._ Just like when I found my father's corpse.

She clutched the paper on her hand more tightly as she's taken back to the present.  _She needs to get out of here._

"Thank you." She says to Varga. "Believe me when I say that I  _know–_ " she pauses, remembering with intensity a different kind of love she had before, a love which ended with a confession of betrayal. "I know how you feel."

He gives her a semi-bow. "Now, I've been waiting for this moment for a very long time and therefore I'm more than ready. Let's have that death sentence now then, shall we?" He finishes with a single clap of his hands, stunning everyone from the abrupt change of mood.

Selene can sense he doesn't do well with public exposure – and prolonged handling of matters that can possibly be dealt with sooner as much as she did. There are more common things they share it seems.

"I'm sorry to disappoint you but you're not going to die. Not today."

The audience were muttering to each other again. This was just about the most exciting thing the coven, _the Eastern Coven at least,_  had to witness in the absence of their usual evening parties.

"Tomorrow morning, then?" He sounded hopeful and lively. "Good! Always a lovely time. It's been a while since I've had the chance to be reacquainted with my warm old friend. I think I've forgotten my last sunrise. Or sunset for that matter."  _Right._ _He's back to his charming self,_  Selene thought.

"I'm giving you pardon," She takes a pause for effect. "Absolution for  _all_  your crimes."

"Selene–"

"I'm not finished yet."

Silence.

"I'm also naming you Master of the Household. You will supervise the training of the existing and new recruits, and also, what do you call it? The Hand of The Queen. The title is yours, if you so wish to take it."

"Selene."

"Cassius."

"The council has a...way of doing things," he says cautiously.

"I'm aware of that. I've watched Viktor handle a thousand trials over the years. He had carried out more death sentences than were necessary. Pardoning was a foreign concept to him. Even his own daughter...He was my sire, the closest thing I had to having a father but that relationship had been built on lies. No matter how much you make me be like him – do you really think giving me his seat in the council, his  _throne_ , will make me honor the memory of the man who slaughtered my family?"

"I did not mean to offend,  _your grace._  However, Varga is an entirely different matter–"

"–loved someone he wasn't supposed to."

"I'm sorry?"

"Varga loved someone he wasn't supposed to," She repeats calmly. "Forgive me for not punishing a man for that reason. Shouldn't we be thankful, at least, that it wasn't  _a_   _lycan_  this time?" Her sarcasm sounded bitter.

"Selene." It was David who tried to stop her this time. He gripped her arm lightly. "He almost killed you. Pardoning him is one thing.  _That_  I can accept, but making him your Hand…I can't just…" he struggles, lost for words. "I thought I'd lost you then." He ends quietly.

"You don't trust him," Selene says, ignoring his last words.

"No, I don't."

"You don't trust the man who stopped and attacked Marius before he had the chance to get to you?"

David was taken aback and Varga looked at her again, thick eyebrows furrowing, with eyes saying,  _what are you on about?_

Nonetheless both men blushed, embarrassed. And like any man in the given situation, they resolved to respond with silence.

_Typical._ Selene was amused, despite herself.

"Anyway, it's settled. You forced me to take over Viktor's place. He was  _the_  Elder of the Elders. I know how it goes. Nobody has ever overridden his veto. Not even when all the council's votes go against his. I do not see why I can't have that same right."

"Very well!" Cassius all but raised his arms above his head in surrender and moved to stand up. "I just hope you know what you're doing," then he remembers himself and who he was talking to. "My queen." Cassius gives her a bow before turning away to leave. The other members of the council did the same.

"I do," she says, with little conviction. She was tired. "Varga."

"Selene." He really takes a good long bow this time, with one hand on his stomach and the other on his back. The perfect servant. Selene has a feeling he has been longing to do that for a while now.

"Proceed to my quarters after you're done here."

"Alright, I–"

"Be quick about it, please." She was now standing up from her throne, the piece of paper she has been holding was now tucked under her left sleeve, right where she used to keep a few strands of Eve's hair before her daughter left her. Then she proceeded to go down the three steps it took for her to be the ruthless and unimportant Selene again. Everyone at once cleared a path for her to walk through.

She goes to Varga before leaving. "Bring three of your best man. No more, no less."

"Okay. But why? And why are we whispering?" She doesn't appreciate the amusement in his voice but decides to ignore it.

"How old are you? You should grow a stubble." Selene catches David's eye as he too, stood up and descended the raised platform. "On second thought, don't."

"What?"

"You and your chosen men–"

"Bearded men?" She was about to slap him but thought better of it.  _I need to get out of here._

"–will take my daughter to the Nordic coven."

"Not a funny bone then. Okay, got it. Wait..." he pauses. "You're entrusting your daughter to me?"

"I'll be following you shortly."  _I'm no fool._ She leaves Varga then, and exits the grand hall. She hears Eve call her but motions her not to follow.

Alone at last, Selene opens the glass windows of the nearest balcony she sees and reads the now crumpled paper for just about the hundredth time.

_FOUND IT. Think we've got a lead on M too. Meet us on the way to Cold Hell. - K_


	4. Cold Hell

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sadly, I don't own Underworld nor any of its beautiful characters. Though I'd like nothing more than to have the power to bring back the gorgeous Scott Speedman to play Michael again.

It was nearing midday but the sun in this frozen part of the world only ever touches the horizon. The perfect sanctuary for any vampire. After disembarking at the railway station, Eve asks Selene if they could go on foot.  _I want to see the sky lights,_  her daughter had implored.

"You can see it too while riding, love."

"Yes, but we won't enjoy it just as much."

"We'll arrive sooner by horse. Besides, aren't you excited to see your Aunt Lena?" The hybrid has taken a liking to the mysterious vampiress, making Selene a bit jealous. Not that she was going to admit it. The third of the new Elders decided to go back to her coven instead of staying in the Eastern one, much to her daughter's dismay. And so frequent visits have been arranged for them to see each other. Eve is always welcomed in their place but this was the first time Selene has allowed her to go instead of Lena visiting them.

Eve was quiet now, undoubtedly contemplating the best choice between walking to see the lights better or riding her way faster to her Aunt Lena. Her daughter then turns to her, with her father's doe-eyes searching hers.  _Oh no._  She wasn't even trying to look like that to get what she wants because she really did have  _those_  set of eyes. It was easily the most precious thing in Selene's world. She knows in her heart she would kill if those eyes asked her to.

"Alright," Selene says with a heavy sigh and then leads them the way.

_The way to Cold Hell,_  she thinks with a shiver. But it wasn't from the winter breeze that accompanies them on their journey.

_If I am wrong about this, and please by the Saints, let me be not, then I have put Eve in unnecessary danger._

"A nut for your thoughts, your grace?" Varga walks to her side, holding out what appears to be actual nuts in his hand.

"What are those?"

"Almonds. They're very tasty. Not to mention they make your teeth do something other than the constant chattering."

"How..." Selene starts, watching him with an incredulous look on her paler than normal face. "Human food is lethal to us immortals."

"Ah! That's what you think – what everyone thinks." He retorts, sounding matter-of-factly.

"What do you mean that's what everyone thinks? It's a long established fact." She was no longer amused, having thought of a complication which can arise from his idiocy. "If you think I'm the least bit willing to drag your convulsing body all the way to the – we're on a mission here for God's sake!" She shouts and stops, realizing too late what she had just said.

"Oh. There it goes." His face darkens and he crosses his arms. You can't put anything past this man. "So, this is really a mission then? Just a  _secret_  one."

"Varga–"

"Selene." He sighs. "If you just trust me–"

"Trust you?!" It was good Eve and the three Death Dealers were now long ahead of them. She cannot do quiet aggravation.

It wasn't true though. She did trust Varga, _to an extent_ , but she'd be a fool to let him know that. For a start, she doesn't even know  _why_  she does. "You almost killed me not so long ago!"

"Yes, and then you made me your right hand man not long after!" Both of them were now flushed from their short-lived squabble, heavy puffs of air going out of their mouths as they struggled to breathe normally again. Well, as normal as inhaling and exhaling  _ice_  to one's lungs can be.

"I'm sorry," Varga says softly, calm again. He seems to remember himself. He uncrosses his arms and wraps them instead around his torso. "But I need to know why we're here. Why your daughter is being paraded around in open field, with only four abled men, and her angry, secretive mother to protect her." He has inched closer to her, almost ready to...huddle for warmth? And the most absurd thing is that she has half a mind to allow him if he did. It was  _that_  cold _._

She lets out the second heavy sigh she's had today, grabs the crumpled paper from her sleeve and forces it onto his hands. He reads it dutifully, thick eyebrows furrowing. Then, he looks at her.

"Why keep this from Eve?"

"I don't want to disappoint her if it would all just lead to nothing. Again." She says simply, watching her daughter from a distance. She was gazing up at the sky. The Northern Lights were now closer, their glow more distinctive and feels almost reachable. A little walk farther now and they'll be able to see the cliff where the castle stood. Eve was far enough to be rescued from immediate danger but close enough to run to the Nordic Coven if Selene and Varga were attacked first.

Eve would sense if her father was near. She would  _see_  through his eyes. That was what Selene counted on. She hoped she herself would know if Michael was close. She knows she would, she thinks, comforting herself with the lie. But right now, she feels nothing but the cold. Even with her white fur cape on, she feels her undead body frosted to the last bit of skin, covered or otherwise.

"She has the right to know you're looking for Michael," Varga insists. "He's her father."

"I know that. Don't you think I know that?"

Varga doesn't reply but just stares at her. Then out of nowhere: "At the start of the 18th century, I started a little…experiment. Let's call it that. I missed eating whatever I loved eating when I was still human–"

"Varga. I appreciate the distraction but  _really_?"

"Just hear me out."

" _Christ above,_ " Selene whispers, rolling her eyes, but she listens to him nonetheless. As if she had any choice.

"As your trusted…servant, I am going to let you in on a secret."

Selene just looks at him, hoping her cold gaze will bore him enough to shut him up.

"Alcohol."

"What?"

"We can drink. Personally, I favor wine among others. I vomit out blood on the third cup but hey," he takes a pause, smiling widely at her now. "You're more powerful than us mere immortals. You can probably down a whole bottle."

Then it happens.

She feels the sudden change in the atmosphere before the chaos even began. There was something odd about how she knows,  _feels_ , an imminent threat even before it can get her. Something only a true Death Dealer knows intuitively from the many hours spent hunting danger itself. And now she's the one being hunted.

Varga looks at her, taking in the fear in her eyes.

_No._

Selene clutches his arm, mouth agape. He obeys the unsaid command with a nod, and unsheathes something from his side that she can only expect to be a gun. Instead he wields a long silver sword which he swings at the incoming bullets.

_Jesus, how stupid can he be?! He's going to die!_

She leaves him anyway, trusting the man who had paralyzed her with nightshade.  _Yeah, he's got it alright._

She then runs to her daughter, waving a frozen hand to catch her attention. It was obvious they were outnumbered and she can think of only one way to escape, only one place.  _We bring nothing but trouble to that bloody coven, god damn it._   _I'm sorry, Lena._  They really should have taken the horses.

Selene sees Eve transform for the very first time. _She knew what was happening._  Before her eyes, her daughter reverts to her most primal state faster than any Lycan Selene has ever seen. Not a single silver bullet was needed to trigger the change, what with the Corvinus blood flowing inside her. The most powerful Hybrid alive then calls out to her mother with a screech, " _Mom!"_

It wasn't long before the armed men were rushing to Eve instead of her. There were about two dozens of them, maybe even more, and she thinks – hopes – there were more of them. Hell, she could take a hundred right now, she realizes with a start.  _I fucking missed this._

They must have been ordered to deliver her daughter unarmed because they weren't shooting at her. This is why about ten feet from where her daughter was standing, ripping out a soldier's insides, Selene stops running. She could have gotten to her in a blink of an eye – she had that power. But she chose to run instead because it's important to her to feel her blood, immortal it may be, scorching hot rushing throughout her frozen veins.

It's important to her that she hasn't forgotten how it feels to fight.

She pulls out an old friend from her leather boots, her Beretta 92FS, the only thing that will never let her down, and shoots every single armed man in the head with the grace of a Death Dealer – none.

_Tomorrow,_ she thinks,  _I will regret this._ Tomorrow she will be the sorriest old fool for putting Eve's life at risk,  _and for what?_ Tomorrow can go fuck itself. Today she was going to do the one thing she's good at. The only thing she was  _reborn_  to do. This was Selene's last thought as she wipes something wet away from her cheeks. It wasn't blood.

She reloads her gun, and lets go of the hope of seeing Michael again.


	5. The Awakening

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, this came out longer than I intended it to be, but I promise Selene and Michael will meet in this century and not in the next. I haven't spoiled it, have I? Please read and review if you'd like to! The story has taken many turns from the moment I thought of it first so anything can happen, I suppose? It's been running off of its own.
> 
> Disclaimer: I don't own Underworld nor any of its beautiful characters.

Three years previously...

They were weak and vulnerable when the human army found them. Men and women alike were wounded, most of them still had silver bullets mapped out across their bodies. Expelling them out was as painful as the moment they've gotten in. It was what war against the vampires did right every time. One would think all the bloodshed involved more close range action, primal against enhanced strength. It wasn't that way, no. Even within a foot from each other, both species fired guns like their lives depended on it. What a shame it was, especially since a transformed lycan, even a younger one, can easily jump and rip off a vampire's head with that close distance. It was the vampires' fault. It was a weakness they've gotten from them, among other things. They hid behind their weapons. In the past, the older ones had chains that tamed their  _dogs_.

The Lycans' den at least wasn't nearly as ruined as the vampire coven's. They had blasted the windows off of their precious sanctuary like they did with the others. It would take some time for them to rebuild an old castle like that and yet…They ended up having the greater loss.

_Take your wounded and leave,_ the one who was unharmed by the sunlight had said, holding Marius' head by the hair. Gregor shuddered at the memory.

They didn't even let them take it, nor his body, if there was any left to take. It's a good thing they didn't because he wouldn't know what to do with either.

He looked around their camp, finding comfort looking at the faces of his brothers and sisters who were still alive, even if the hope of their long deserved win was once again snatched away from them. They were  _so_   _close_. Marius had been unstoppable. They had conquered coven after coven, all except two.  _One is impregnable and the other too far and frozen to bend,_  Marius had said.  _Let us wait it out._

And so they did. Gregor, along with the younger lycans, were ordered to stay behind when Marius and the older ones went to fight the Nordic Coven. They returned with the news of Selene's death, and Gregor could not have admired the alpha lycan more. There was no stopping him alright, and yet...

The power of regeneration has been bestowed to both species. They were equal in that regard. The first Immortal laid out a balanced ground for his two sons to play on. Some can heal within minutes, others take longer, but it happens. The healing of the wounds would run their course, as with the recovery from severe blood loss, which was a stretch itself, but not impossible.

But one cannot be reborn from the dead. It was a foreign concept even among them. It was more than a stretch, it was the most goddamn  _insulting_  form of cheating.

Yet, Selene has done it. Some even say she also had  _resurrected_  one of the vampires.  _How fucking unfair was that?_ The fight had been equal until it wasn't. And Gregor saw it with his own eyes. Everyone had still been stunned seeing that one vampire unburnt by the sun when they had  _felt_  the change come.

It was Selene. But no one knew then that  _it_  was her.  _It_  was a sudden but strong rush of wind, invisible. In its wake, killing at least a dozen lycans, even knocking Marius out, all with a single long whoosh.

It was unfair.

A sudden commotion from the camp's main entrance brought Gregor back to the present. They were armed men. Humans. He can smell them even from afar and had to restrain himself. It was the curse of the newly turned; their bodies were still too weak to control the bloodlust. The human military were led by three fat men in white suits and one young woman with striking red hair. She wore a white suit too, and looked pale with unease. Gregor could tell because she had taken a quick look around and then moved closer to her male companions.

"We come in peace," said the largest of them as they entered. It was the safest of greetings, a classic. It was also what will kill them. The lycans were just defeated, but it was because of the vampires' doing. If the humans thought they can outmatch them now, then they picked the wrong kind.

The vampires will nibble their neck for dinner, but the lycans...they will devour their flesh, swallow their insides and gnaw at their tiny brittle bones before breakfast.

Gregor gave a start and had to shake his head to clear off the mangy thoughts. He was not a beast.

"There will be no need of another bloodshed. We just want to get what your leader took from one of our labs," the man continued. Slowly, he raised his hand and motion for the armed men at the back to stand down. They did not throw their weapons away but had them lowered now. That was good enough for Ramon, the only one of the older lycans who survived.

"Take whatever it is and go. Most of the horde are young and I will not be responsible if they fail to resist their lust to feed."

The humans looked at each other warily but were determined to get what they came for. They pressed forward then, slowly scattering around to search. Gregor knew what they were looking for,  _who_  they wanted back. But what could they possibly do with a dead lycan? Marius' pet was nothing but a bag of flesh and bones now, blood all drained out.

"In here, sir!" Together with the humans, some curious lycans, came rushing to take a look.  _They finally found Marius's headquarters then,_  thought Gregor. He had unchained Michael himself, remembering too well how his head crashed on the floor with a thud. He hadn't meant for that to happen and karma was quick on its feet as he then managed to cut himself with the saw he used to break his chains. It was just a small but deep cut on the back of his thumb. But the blood came rushing out anyway, crawling down his forearm to his elbow, where it can go no farther now but to drip away towards the dead  _and now concussed_  lycan on the floor. If there was blood left in him he would have bled a great deal from that strong impact. But there was none.

That was just hours ago. He didn't know why it was the first thing he did the moment they arrived from the coven. Maybe he just wanted to be reminded that Marius did succeed in something. If nothing else, he did more damage than Lucian had. He had killed Selene's lycan lover.

That counted, right? It had to. Love has always counted, especially the loss of it.

The bystanders were still milling around Marius's chamber and Gregor couldn't take it anymore. He rushed to take a look at what Marius had called  _his masterpiece_  one last time.

Michael lied on the floor, unmoving.  _What else was he expecting?_  The slit on his neck had the same length, although the blood that came out of it which covered most of his face and hair has gone dry. Most of it. But there was fresh blood on his mouth. It was distinguishable because the wetness of it shined. He looked like he had just feed.

Gregor felt the hair on the nape of his neck stand up. He recalls another hearsay, a ritual of some sort that the vampires observed every century. It was too  _ridiculous_  to be real. What he has to remember is that it doesn't matter if it was in fact true, the lycans could not possibly do it. Not even the oldest of them. They can never cheat a second death. And yet…

He saw rather than felt the change this time. It was slower than Selene's near-teleportation streak, but no less horrifyingly real.

Michael gulped in air and his supposedly dead chest rose. His eyes opened an instant after.

"Just as we had hoped," the fat man said, unfazed. He turned to the young woman, whose face was close to being petrified. "Oh, don't give me that look. Subject 3 is alive, and we haven't even done anything to him yet." He was now smiling. "Now…spray him."

* * *

Present time

The Sundals were always out in the field more than anywhere else. And Michael hated it. Especially when he's commanded to keep watch over the training.

Everyone was drenched from the waist up. And why weren't they? The sun's so high up that it's long past their morning warm up. It was now their noontime roast. Their dark olive sleeveless shirts have clung to their skin like spandexes.  _Spandexi?_  They all looked hideous. Their arms were slick and shiny with sweat, and their faces were scrunched up, hateful from the exertion. It was lucky that the great heroes of humanity were exposed to the their adoring public only when they're already in their glorious uniforms. And thank god those weren't made of rubber. Who the hell thought skin tight clothing was good for practice fighting anyway?

_I know someone who looks good in something like that,_  Michael thought, momentarily distracted.  _Stop it, Michael. You're on duty._  God, even the reprimanding voice in his head sounded so much like  _her_.

"You didn't mind it so much last night," Katie Smith cut through his inappropriate thoughts as she bumped her shoulder on his.

He turns to her, so much aware of the reddening of his cheeks, thankful though that it was hot enough for his blush to blend in. He wouldn't put it past Katie not to notice though, and sure enough when he looked at her, she was wearing a smirk on her lips. She knows.

"Caught you on dreamland again, eh, dream boy?" She says, teasing. "Or don't tell me you just love putting on your 'disgusted face' all of the time."

"What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about how you're so repulsed by  _perspiration_  due to any activity that's not sexual intercour–" Michael cuts her off with his hand. She was too clever for her own good.

"Would you keep your voice down," he whispers harshly to her face.

She grabs his hand and yanks them down. "Alright, alright." Then she gives him a look. "I am right though, aren't I?"

He tells her the truth with his silence.

"Aha." She was sounding too bright this early in the day. He tells her this.

"Seriously? Who the hell is that woman?!"

"Beats me if I know."

"God, maybe you're just so…I don't know," she takes a pause on her excitement, cautious of the 'don't even think about it' look he was giving her. "…deprived?"

"I do dream about her all fully clothed too, you know," he counters, forcing down an eye roll.

"Right. All jokes aside, don't you really know her?"

"For the thousand time, no, I don't."

"But it's just so...creepy. Don't you find it the least bit creepy?"

"It is weird but," Michael says. He turns away from her, eyes looking at nowhere and thinking,  _what if?_

"She makes me feel like I have another life, you know?" he starts. "That I've lived another life and that I'm another man," he says, looking at her again. "Oh, come on, Katie. You really think this is it? Don't you ever wonder if there's more to us than just being their pets?"

"Okay, now  _you_  need to keep your voice down," she grabs his arm lightly and leans in closer, eyes darting across the men on the field.

"It's true. You know it's true." Michael hates his pleading voice but she needs to understand. As the only friend he has here, in this…confinement, she needs to know the importance of his dreams. The hope the beautiful leather-clad woman gave him. Real or not real, she was  _somebody_  to him.  _Or him to her._

His dreams have been more frequent now than ever.

"You are their most prized soldier. The best combatant…well, second to me at least." He smiles at that. "Hell, you wield and swing or shoot every weapon they throw at us like you've been doing it since the moment you first learned to walk."

He stays silent as he stares at her, then he shakes his head, still not saying a word.

"Michael, look at me." Her hands reach out to cup his face. "You belong here," she says simply. He was half tempted to count the spattering of freckles on her pale nose and cheeks. This was the closest they've gotten near to each other.

The thing was, Katie is beautiful. With her long unkempt red hair, green eyes–the kind of green like the water that's close to the ocean's shoreline–and her quick wit…Oh, he has met his match. It was so easy to fall in love with her. Every man in their battalion was. Except for him. He can't be. Not when another woman meets him in his dreams and occupies even most of his waking hours.

"Apart from your dreams, apart from that random woman, there is no  _tangible_  indication that you don't."

_But you don't know that,_  he wants to tell her.  _And she isn't just anybody._

"Remember what we always tell each other? Say it to me now."

_She has fangs. Her hands have no claws but her grip is firm. A grip stronger than that of a lover lost in the throes of passion, one that almost shatters his bones and nails that leave scars on his skin._

"Better the devil we know."

_And her eyes...Her eyes were blue before turning back to brown. It was the coldest shade of blue._

"That's right," she says with a smile and he nods, playing obedient.

_She's a vampire. I'm a long lost lover of a beautiful vampire,_  he wants to scream the  _absurdity_  of it to her.

Instead, he moves away but gives her an assuring smile. "Fawkes needs me, I just remembered. I'll be right back."

"Go. And don't you dare come back without any juicy gossip. I want to know who's screwing who!"

The first thing he notices once he's inside the Sundals' headquarters was an overhead projector. It had been so long since he's last seen one that he stares at it for a while.  _The CSM couldn't possibly be that old fashioned,_  Michael thought. Sure, he still uses  _a flip phone_ but the military equipments, from the armory to the computer-operated machines in all of the bases of the Sundals were one of the finest and most advanced. The government made sure of that. Well, they had to, didn't they? How else will the human army defeat that of the undead?

"Michael." The old but bulky officer greets him from one end of a long table. "We've been waiting for you."

"Well," he says, feeling awkward. "I'm here." He tells the whole tent at large. He just noticed there were at least six Fawkes staring at him.

The Fawkes he knows, his commander, grins. "He's the one I was telling you about," he says, addressing everyone but him. Michael felt exposed.

"Are you sure, Bill–"

"I am absolutely sure!" he says, hand thumping on the table.

A pause then, "Come, Michael. Take a seat."

Michael wasn't aware he was clenching his fists.  _I cannot lose control._  Even if he knows he can take them all down, he must not forget who he is and  _where_  he is.

He takes a seat, lets out a breath.

"Michael, I–we believe it's time you're let loose."

"What do you mean?"

"You'll be heading an operation. A very important one."

Michael remains silent. He doesn't know what to feel. He was ever only allowed to train the cadets, much like he was once trained by his superiors. The skills he acquired he passed on eventually and that was all he has known to do. He wasn't that naive not to know where the trained soldiers go and what they were ordered to do. But Michael is not like them. He will not be the man the Sundals' created to kill.

_You are their most prized soldier._  If what Katie said was true, then why had they kept him here for so long?

Fawkes stands up, walks over to the projector, positioning the first slide. The ancient thing lights up and dread washed over Michael as he sees the screen.

"This is Selene. I know you and the others are sick of the name so now I'm providing a visual."

_No! It can't be._

"You know the drill, Michael." He hears Fawkes as though from far away. His eyes were still on the projected screen and took in everything about Selene.  _His Selene._

She wore a white coat made of fur on top of the same leather she donned in all of his dreams. She looked like royalty. Her hair was different though but not much. It was a bit longer, bunched up in a high ponytail, and the ends were highlighted in white. Her face was young and beautiful as ever, a breath of fresh air to anyone who looked at her. Michael knew he had to turn his gaze away now but he couldn't. The  _realness_  of her had him transfixed and frozen on the spot.

"We just found out she'll be leaving her secure fortress soon. Again. Stupid move if you ask me, she left with her daughter two years ago and our men then were still too weak to defeat them. She killed all 200 of them."

That broke the spell for Michael.

Fawkes takes a pause, then shuts the projector down. "She's quite the looker too, but do not be fooled. She's the most powerful immortal alive. She'll kill you in a heartbeat, Michael." Another pause, then for the second time: "You know the drill."

Yes, Michael knows the drill. He knows it by heart. He just doesn't know if he wants to follow it.

_Selene's greatest strength is her humanity. Her daughter reminds her of what she has lost. She's grounded by her love for her and the desire to protect her at all cost. To get to the cold Death Dealer, we must first touch the human within. And the only way to do that is to surrender._

_Do not misunderstand me. If faced with their force, fight and kill as many as you can. If you're outnumbered, then that is the only time you will surrender. Ask to be taken to her. She will show mercy. She has to. Because her daughter will hate her if she did anything but. Use this weakness as a way to get to her. Let her trust you. And then, when the opportunity presents itself,_ break _her._

"I won't let you down." That was what the soldier in Michael says to his commander.

His heart however, in the quiet, beats another.  _Finally. Now, I get to come to you._


	6. Losing and Finding

Selene fought her last war three years ago. She thought she would crave it not long after but she hadn't. That last fight cost her nothing but remorse. Eve didn't deserve that. Her daughter came running to her after her last kill, eyes full of tears. She hugged her then, with both of their arms still wet with fresh blood, she hadn't cared, only of putting everything into that fierce embrace.  _I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, my love. I am so stupid._ She had forgotten she had to think and care for someone else now, that her running away, no holds barred, to any opportunity of seeing Michael again meant she would also be putting their daughter's life at risk.

_Many battles will be fought over her._ Lena's words had rung in her head then, with such intensity that she couldn't let Eve go.

_No more of that,_ Selene thought, kissing the side of her daughter's head. A silent promise.

And she's kept that promise since. David and the others went out now and then but she has remained in the coven for as long as she can remember.

She did what was expected of her as the highest of the Elders. With no place to rule, or reside in for that matter, David had given her reign over the Eastern Coven, a gift she didn't wish to take. But she accepted and endured, like she always had, and has been dutifully performing tasks. It was as exciting as polishing a pistol instead of actually using it. Everyday was the same. In the morning – meaning every twilight – the council welcomes an audience, and the vampires line up to voice out their  _concerns_. Cassius will ask the members to vote on a decision, an act that was almost always  _useless_  because in the end, Selene had the final say no matter what.

Sometimes she goes against them on purpose just to see the look of horror on their faces.  _I win._

Fun as that may be, she was beginning to regret likening herself to Viktor in the first place. It had cemented her power over them all, power she didn't desire and even cared less for once it was fully given to her.  _So much for defending a murderer._

Selene's thoughts now naturally stray to Varga. She hadn't regretted her decision of giving the man pardon nor did she regret  _honoring_ him. Much to her surprise and dread, she has found the Death Dealer's presence…well, tolerable. He makes her laugh and Selene has never laughed all her immortal life. It also helps that he wasn't the least bit intimidated by her. He walked and talked to her without all the fussing the others often did, and for this she was beyond grateful. She could really use a friend in this whole  _royal_  ordeal.

Not that she and Varga were friends.

"Your Grace," the man currently occupying her thoughts presents himself at her side with a bow. She hears the smirk in the address. Selene was currently sitting on Viktor's chair, positioned above the rest of the council members'. He gives her a wink before turning to everyone else. "I'm sorry to cut this important...handling of matters short, but her highness, the Princess Eve, requires her mother. Urgently."

_Finally._

* * *

 

"What took you so long?" Selene asks as she puts on her long, white overcoat once they're out of the Elders' Chamber. Her right hand man was now leading her to wherever her daughter was.  _Hopefully she's in the library. I could do with a really good book right now._

"Well…There was no Eve requiring you  _urgently_  for a start."

She stops. "What?"

Varga stops walking too and sighs. "It may have escaped your notice, my queen, but your daughter," he starts, hesitating. "She's about to turn 16."

"I know that."

"She's a teenager."

"Yes, I also know that. She has been for a while now, actually. Do you have a point after all of this fact checking?"

Varga doesn't answer but just stares at her, looking gobsmacked. "You  _astound_  me. Seriously." He waves his arms up in surrender as he continues to walk along the hall again. "Eve is growing up. One day, not so far from the present, she will stop wanting to hang out with her mother _,_ meaning  _you_. Now...do you see where I'm going with this?"

A rush of sudden emotion grips her with his words. Without needing to sink her teeth into her own pool of blood memories, a vivid image flashes in her mind's eye. It was the very first time she ever saw her daughter. She was so small, still catching her breath from all the running, and was cowering in the shadows. Selene remembered the relieving thrill of expecting to see Michael turn into open fear seeing a child – with his eyes – right where he was supposed to be. Selene was as terrified of finding her as Eve did.

"I expected warmth at least," her daughter finally confessed to her some time ago. "You looked at me with…so much  _sadness_  and…anger. You were supposed to feel familiar and...you were. That was what hurt the most. I  _felt_  you but you weren't really there. How could you anyway, when you didn't even know me."

Now she did knew Eve and that...she was everything wonderful in the world. Any mother would say that about her child but Selene doesn't care about being a cliche.  _Hell, her whole existence now was a cliche._  She was proud of her daughter, happy that she had the chance to see her grow. And to grow with her. Selene wasn't throwing parties nor mingling with her fellow immortals and indulging in the pleasures of having an endless existence, but she was…less hateful now. And it was all because of Eve.

And now she was losing her.

The doors to her daughter's chamber burst open even before Varga could knock. Eve appears, wearing a dark leather cape poncho, which fails to hide her now prominent curves in her matching leather trousers. They were Selene's trousers. She has to stop herself from telling her to wear a  _longer_  cape to hide those legs.  _Immediately!_   _I have to burn everything I own._ She was also wearing… _Is that makeup?_  God knows where she got it. Selene has never worn any. Not even back when she was a younger immortal, when Erika was always begging her to  _just please, Selene…You're going to ruin the whole night!_

She was trying so hard not to catch Varga's eye. She doesn't need his  _I told you so_  right now.

"Mom!" She shouts and beams at her, then, noticing Varga, she curtsies before him. 

He bows in return. "My princess."

Then...nothing. All three of them stood there in her doorway and…Eve doesn't move to give her mother a hug.

Selene distracts herself from being emotional about such a small matter by smiling back a little too late, and then pointing at the silver bow in Eve's hand. Varga gave it to her as a gift on her 14th birthday. "Arrows again today then? I thought you missed having to fence."

"I'd love to fence but you don't. So I'm being a good child and choosing the lesser evil." She grins at her. Even her father's grin she's got down perfectly.

"How very thoughtful of you."

They walked a couple of floors down into one of the training rooms. It was her favorite part of the day, playing with Eve. Although playing wasn't really the right term, not anymore. Selene had boundless knowledge of weapons, especially of her beloved guns, but her daughter was everything she wasn't, and so naturally Eve shot arrows (ones without silver nitrate) and fenced, the chosen hobbies of a proper lady.

But there's the fact that Eve loves to read. She reads just about everything she can get her hands on at the Eastern Coven's Grand Library – one of the largest parts of the whole castle. Selene wishes she could thank the person who had cared enough for an orphan child to teach her the wonders of the written word, especially as it seems it was the only thing she shares in common with her daughter. 

_I wonder if Michael was a bookworm as well…Maybe not._ Selene hoped, feeling guilty _. He looked too rugged, too bad boy…_

_Well, compared to_ me _he was downright an angel._

* * *

"Cover!"

Another grenade was thrown just a few yards from where Michael was. Nobody got hurt. That wasn't what their opponents wanted, the blast was for them to stand down. And he wanted to stand down. He wanted to end this stupid back-and-forth which was going nowhere and accomplishing nothing. And the thing was, he could do it. He was in command  _for fuck's sake, Michael,_  but his team just wasn't cooperating.

"We need to surrender," he tells them firmly for the third time and now feeling courageous, or just mentally exhausted: "That's an order."

"But they're outnumbered!" Daniel, a young lycan barely in his mid-twenties, shouts back. "And look at the time…sir," he continues. "When the sun rises–"

"I know what happens when the sun rises!" Everyone was staring silently at him now. Michael has never raised his voice.

He doesn't want the sun to rise. What would be the point of surrendering to...ashes? And why are these vampires still holding their ground when they've got nowhere to go? Michael glances down at his watch. 4:47. With barely a quarter of time, how the hell are they going to win this fight? He moves up to steal yet another look at the opposing force.

She wasn't there.

_What did he expect? A queen always has someone else fighting her wars for her. But then again, she was a Death Dealer. One of the best as their superiors told them again and again. Surely…_

Michael sits back down heavily then sighs. His team was barely a battalion but the vampires still had lesser men.  _Do they have a tent somewhere behind those bushes they're in right now?_ This was getting ridiculous.  _Time to man up, Michael._

He removes the strap holding his M14 from his shoulder and stands up, now in plain view of everyone, much to his team's surprise and dread.

"Sir, please–"

He ignores them, even Katie, who he sees in his peripheral vision, looking so pale watching him walk over to somewhere in the middle of the open field that stands between the two sides. His hands are up in surrender. In doing so, he catches another glimpse of his watch.

4:53.

A tall man emerges from one of the large bushes, walking straight to him. He had blue eyes,  _his Selene's eyes,_  Michael thinks distractedly, and feels annoyed all of a sudden.

"Good decision to concede, soldier."

Michael lowers his hands. "Is it? I have twice the force you have and just seven minutes 'til sun up, we won't even have to do that much work." He wasn't sure why he was challenging him when the plan was to surrender.  _His_  plan.

"Then why didn't you wait?"

"I got impatient watching you hide like sitting ducks." Michael takes a pause, glances at his watch for the third time then turns to him. "It's more exciting to watch you burn." It wasn't him that's talking anymore. There's a newborn monster inside that suddenly hates everything about this man.

He was taller than Michael but he doesn't intimidate him. Looks don't kill but this man's eyebrows might. They were so thick and dark against his white skin. He doesn't answer his petty taunts but instead looks up at the sky, now a purplish hue, then smiles.

_What the hell?_

_Did Selene really entrust her soldiers' lives with this man?_

"Take us to your leader." Michael says at last.

That wiped the smile off his face. "And why would I do that?"

"I have information." Of what, he doesn't know. But he sure has some questions.

"Let me get this straight. You threaten me and my man, then you surrender...only you really didn't, because you'd rather watch me burn in the sunlight. And now you're asking me to take you to our coven. Is that correct?"

"Yes. You wouldn't want Selene to know you've turned down a polite request."

"A polite request?" There was some hint of anger in his voice now. 

_Good shot, Michael._

"There was no bloodshed, wasn't there? We surrendered. Not a single bullet was shot. I think that's polite enough."

He goes quiet again, contemplating his options, none of which was favorable. "Alright. Tell your men to leave their weapons behind."

He then moves away from Michael, eyes now squinting from the early daybreak rays. 

Michael follows the vampire who did not burn in the sun.


	7. Through a Corvin's Eye

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own Underworld nor any of its beautiful characters.

The way to the most guarded fortress of the vampires was full of humungous trees. They formed a forest with ground untouched by the sun. Michael can only imagine what it was like from the outside now. The sun was above the horizon, but its heat has yet to creep in through the morning air. The chill of the pre-dawn has remained.

David, the man with eyebrows that unnerved even a man like Michael, was silent as he led them through the thick woods. There was nothing about him that can indicate he was capable of leading an army, much less that of the most renowned Death Dealer alive. Still, he couldn't help being impressed if anything else. David had no large force and was in fact only accompanied by five vampires, all fully garbed in black leather – creatures of the night and ninjas in the daylight. It was almost comical if it wasn't so tragic.

_What could it be like,_  he ponders,  _to walk forever in darkness with the light just within reach?_  Every single day these immortals know the sun would rise and every single time it did they would have to resist it.

_Did Selene want to be in the dark?_  His thoughts clouds over. If he was her long lost love…or long lost anything for that matter, why had she let him be taken away? Why have they been separated? Why was he left to be raised as an  _animal_  by the humans? How many rules did the great vampiress break to be with him...Why did she go into so much trouble in the first place when in the end she still let him go? These thoughts left Michael's head reeling, if there was even half the truth to it all.

_She left you, Michael_ , the more rational part of his mind insists.  _She left you with nothing but a few dreams._ Vivid though they were, they confused him more, mere vignettes that are closer to mean nothing.

_And what about her daughter? Is the hybrid child mine?_

The daughter of Selene was known to the Sundals as the child of the devil, a creature whose birth was an anomaly even to her kind, both vampires and lycans. If the child was his as much it was hers, why has he no memory of her at all? Even of Selene, he remembers her through memories formed by his subconscious, tethered to reality only when he's asleep.

Michael was not entirely ignorant of course. He knew most of those who were turned had been given no choice. Most were only victims of the war that had spanned over centuries between the immortals, they were simply caught in the unending crossfire. But still there were turnings...of the more personal, more  _intimate_  kind. Michael has heard women from the camp romanticize the very turning of the vampires. Naturally, he scoffed at them alongside Katie because it was easier that way.

_"Some of them choose who they turn. It's true. The lycans imprint, almost instinctively, it's more of their nature but the vampires...Oh, those sexy blood suckers...they_ simply  _fall in love."_

Michael can feel his heart pounding now. There were lesser trees on the path they're taking and in a not so far distance, he catches a glimpse of what can only be the highest towers of a castle. They were nearing the Eastern Coven.

It was absurd to think of Selene turning him. He was a lycan and she a vampire. If they shared something it was only the desire to kill the other. If they had once fallen in love…Well, that thought was even more ridiculous if Michael was being honest with himself. She was cold as ice. In all of his dreams of her she had smiled  _once_ , and that was near the end of…  _And what about him?_  Michael has only ever loved one woman all his life. And she left him too soon, before their life together can even begin. There was nothing he could do back then, only to watch as his entire world struggled to draw her last breath. The memory of it and all the times they had together used to keep him awake at night but now...it just left him empty.

_"I don't need much of anything except you."_

Michael shakes his head and looks around for a distraction.  _Why is it so quiet,_ he thinks, glancing at his men. They looked so much younger without their weapons. He lets their silent anger calm his nerves, something to stop him hearing the loud hammering inside his chest. Of course their grudge toward him was uncalled for. The orders were clear – surrender to Selene. They're just disappointed he let them all be taken without a proper fight. The lycans were humiliated more so than anyone else. Never mind that, he can deal with wounded egos. It was still so much better than carry corpses.

He turns around again to watch David in front of him. There was a certain  _calm_  about the vampire that was sending Michael over the edge.  _He could be leading us into a trap for all I know._

"What's your name?"

He almost misses the question. It came out more of a grunt.

"Michael."

David stops walking so abruptly that he almost bumps into him. The vampire turns slowly, faces him, a dark expression on his face. He was staring at Michael like he was seeing him for the very first time. Then very quietly he asks, "Corvin?"

_How–?_  Without waiting for his answer, David pushes him with such impact that he stumbles backward to the ground, all the air knocked out of him. Shocked more than badly injured, he was on his knees a moment later, looking up to the strong vampire who has now pulled out a gun from his side. He shoots somewhere behind Michael.

Michael clutches his chest, still kneeling on the cold ground, as he struggled to catch his breath again. He was coughing from the effort of trying to breathe normally again, only barely managing to take in the sight before him.

All of the other vampires had fallen to the ground. Purple blue liquid, and tiny sparks –  _fireworks_ , burst from within them. It all but consumed them whole, inside out.

_No._

The Sundals got they wanted. The vampires burned before them.

—

"Mom?"

"Yes, Eve?"

"Do you think...Am I pretty?"

Selene lowers her bow, and takes a long look at her daughter. "You are beautiful, my love," she says gently.

"Really?" Eve has never sounded so uncertain. "But, how can you tell?"

"Well…"  _Be very careful now._  "For one thing, you are your father's daughter."

This caught Eve's interest. She's lowered her bow now too, then sets it on the floor and moves closer to her mother. "Was he really attractive?"

With a sigh, Selene motions Eve for them to sit on one of the cold metal benches of the training room. Despite not being good with expressing her feelings, she's long found out that she can tell her daughter just about anything and everything she wanted to hear. And so she tells her the night that had started it all, a story she has told her a hundred times now. It was Eve's favorite just as much as it was hers.  _That_ , Selene thinks,  _I'll never tell her._  "In my six hundred years of existence never once did I allow myself to get distracted during a Death Dealer operation. It just wasn't possible. Your father proved me wrong of course. My attention was indeed capable of...doing something else. Like wandering off and staring at ruggedly handsome men."

Eve giggles.  _Always on cue._  "God, I'll never tire of this story."

"He was drenched from the rain," Selene continues, now with a sad smile. "And when he swept his hair back from his face I…I just knew I was done for."

Eve sighs beside her, hands over knees that are tucked under her chin.

Selene playfully pats her nose. "Not that I knew that back then of course."

"Of course." Eve rolls her eyes, mischievous grin now on her lips. Then: "Oh, mom. It's just so…romantic." She smiles at her, a content look on her face.

Selene smiles back but averts her eyes quickly, heart constricting from a pain she's familiar with, a pain that has kept her company during most nights and even in the quiet of her mornings. One that she rarely feels when she's with Eve, that is until she looks at her eyes.  _Michael's eyes._

It was funny, how everyone keeps saying that Eve looks exactly like her. A compliment or otherwise, Selene couldn't quite see the resemblance. She turns her attention back to her daughter, tucks a stray hair behind one ear. Then she kisses her forehead. "Do you want to wash up so we can have dinner early?"

"No..not  _now_  anyway." She stops her fussing. "Tell me again the first time you kissed father."

"Eve…"

"Please? Come on, mom. That moment hasn't been told enough like the train sta–argh!" Eve clutches her head suddenly. She screamed, face contorting from obvious pain. She shuts her eyes, willing the for it to go away.

"Eve! What's wrong? Look at me!" Selene holds her by the arms with urgency, falling to the ground on her knees in front of her daughter.

"I…" For a few excruciating moments, they stayed like that, both breathing heavily. Eve slowly opens her eyes. They were unseeing, scanning something that wasn't there. Her mouth was slightly open, as if wanting to say something but couldn't. She looks down at her mother.

"Talk to me, Eve. Please...You're scaring me, love." Selene was slowly crying now, small tears rolling down her cheeks. She reaches out to cradle her daughter's jaw, forcing her gaze toward her. Eve's eyes stilled and finally stared back at her as a beat later, she says very quietly: "He's here."

Selene's throat tightens without a reason. She blinks the tears away from her eyes. "Who, love? Who?" Then, with more courage, "Remember what I've always told you? Mother will never let any harm come to you. Never again." She takes another deep breath before she continues.  _I need to let her know that she's safe._  "Let them come. Whoever they are, I will face them. Do you hear me, Eve?"

There was no mistaking the change in Eve's expression as she cried openly now. But it wasn't tears of sorrow nor of fear. Her eyes shined, smiling almost. Now it was her who raises both of her hands to cup her mother's face, brushing its last few tears away. Her mouth forms a smile, looking so much more like a child than anything else.

"Father is here," she whispers.


	8. Rapture

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own Underworld nor any of its beautiful characters.

 

Selene could only stare at her daughter, unsure if she had heard much less understood her right.

_He's here. Michael is here._  He has found his way to her somehow, his way to  _them_.

_Oh, Michael._

"Say something, mom." Eve nudges her, grasping her arm.

Selene blinks, and tries to get a grip of herself, and when she does, panic sets in. "Where is he, Eve? Is he alright? Why did your head hurt? Tell me what you saw." 

Something wasn't right. She doesn't know it yet but she has always trusted her gut. Her gut that had told her that Lucian still lived, that the lycans were far from being extinct. The one that compelled her to bite Michael, turn him into a hybrid of both species, if only to save him. And that same impulse was telling her now that they should be far from celebrating.

"Mom, calm down." Eve says, sensing her distress. "He's with David. They're on their way here. They might be here already." Her daughter moves away from her and toward the metal doors of the training room. Selene follows her.

Varga enters just as Eve was about to leave. Selene hadn't even noticed him gone earlier.

Her daughter walks past him, almost running, not even glancing over her shoulder. Selene was left alone with the man whose presence she's come to seek unknowingly almost all of the time.

"Selene." His voice sounded grave. No formalities now. When it was just the two of them, there was no need for any of that. She holds his gaze intensely, almost  _desperately_ , asking him with her eyes the question that's burning inside her.

"David wants to talk to you."

She takes a deep breath, and yet when she speaks, her voice trembled. "Where is he?"

Both of them knew she wasn't asking about David.

Without waiting for an answer, Selene saunters to the nearest wall, pressing her hands against its cool surface to balance herself. Then she falls heavily down the floor, finally breaking down. And Varga does what he has always been good at. He does what no other person in her life can do, not the way she wants it. He has mastered  _the art of Selene_ , of saying exactly what she wants to hear, precisely at the right moment. But more importantly,  _most_   _importantly_ , he knows when to keep his silence. Like he does now.

Any other man, perhaps David, would have fallen on his knees beside her, as if in doing so he could share her pain. But Varga was different. He understands Selene like no one else could.

He lets her be.

And so she falls apart, sat on the floor with her head down, arms hugging her knees. She sobbed like she has never sobbed before. Her cries filled the dark room. And he stays with her. He stays not saying a word, not even looking at her, until she could cry no more, until she's rocked her body enough to come back to rationality, to sensibility, back to be the cold-hearted Death Dealer she always has been. Except she wasn't even that anymore – these days they called her the Ice Queen. Varga stays until she could do nothing but stare straight ahead, arms crossed restless on her knees and mouth slightly open – exhausted. Only then does he bend down in front of her, seeking her red swollen eyes.

"You've waited long enough, my queen." He says it so gently, so unlike the person everybody thought he was. Selene wonders vaguely, not for the first time, if he lets anybody else see him like this. Because she herself only ever lets her guard down when she's with him.

He holds out his hand. "Come. Please, let me take you to him."

* * *

When they set foot on the castle grounds David separates Michael from the others. He leaves them to the care of the clueless Death Dealers guarding the castle's iron gates, acting every bit the helpless warrior as he told them his version of what had happened.

"We were ambushed. This one," he tugs on Michael's chains, "singlehandedly killed Samuel, Edward and Jason. I should take him to Selene myself."

Some part of Michael, where his honor resided, and indeed the better part of himself, wanted to do something,  _anything_ , to lessen the  _shittiness_  of the situation they were in. It was killing him to just to stand there.  _Think, Michael. Think._

What would he tell them anyway? 'Your leader betrayed and killed your own kind' doesn't sound right coming from a sworn enemy, not to mention he'll be making a fool of himself in trying. And so Michael kept his silence and allowed David to drag him towards the back of the castle.

He takes him to the dungeons. Or that's what Michael thinks. It was dark and the path they took was too narrow that he was finding it difficult to breathe again. He looks around and the chains binding his hands clink loudly when he does, disturbing the quiet of the place. He wipes the blood away from his nose, throwing imaginary daggers at the vampire's back before recollecting his thoughts.

He was correct in thinking that this man was dangerous but has failed to anticipate just how much. He thinks of Selene, of her safety and that of her child's, with a traitor in their midst. The sudden urge to protect them consumes him, the blood in his veins pulses, the lycan within wanting nothing more than to rip David's throat apart.

_No, that wouldn't do. It would achieve nothing._ Selene hasn't even seen him yet, if he would even be given the chance to see her at all at this point. He'll be introduced as the enemy no less.

It turns out Michael wasn't being taken to the dungeons but through a tunnel that led to what could only be a ballroom. Its massive expanse had elaborate chandeliers that hung from the ceiling but were far closer to the floor, brightening the otherwise gloomy interior. Tall glass windows surround every inch of the place, along with weirdly cultivated plants. The floor was so shiny and pristine that it was a feat that Michael hasn't lost his footing yet – being dragged around. There was also some kind of stage-like platform in the middle. This is where David sets him down, like an animal, facing the hundred or more vampires around the room. They were dressed in their evening clothes, glasses of red (blood, no doubt) wine held on their hands. They looked at him with disgust – he was wearing his Sundal uniform – and he couldn't care less.

David leaves him there – a lone lycan among his vampire foes.

* * *

For the second time that day, Selene couldn't believe what she was hearing.

_He's one of them, Selene. He's trained to kill our kind. Michael is a danger to us all, especially to you and Eve._

"No," she responds as quickly as David repeats his words. "No."

David eyes her warily. "I knew you'd say that," he says, then holds out his wrist to her. "See for yourself."

It takes her a few seconds to comprehend what he was suggesting.

"Do not misunderstand me, David. I trust you. You know that." Ignoring his disbelief, she continues. "But I  _love_  that man. And he is the father of Eve. Right now I don't care whatever he's done, you will unchain him. You will take me to him and you will harm him no further."

He doesn't say anything for a few seconds but eventually gives her a small, curt nod. Then turns his back on her and Varga, stepping out from his own private chambers.

They follow him.

* * *

Selene's heart was racing. After so many years, the only man she has ever loved is alive, and is here – somewhere in this castle, where she has built her incomplete home for the past years, where their child grew up without a father, and one where she's currently reigning over.

_Oh god,_ she thinks with a jolt,  _I'm a queen._

_What will Michael think of that?_

Not for the first time, she contemplates all the things she's unknowingly forced Michael to deal with in the past – whether he had liked it or not.  _We've got it all wrong,_  Selene realizes. They've fallen in love before really knowing each other, dictated by circumstances that left them confused, frightened, and desperately seeking for something to hold on to.

Then they were lovers before being friends.

_Does Michael even consider me as a friend?_  This thought brings a smile to Selene's face.  _Of course he does_ , she thinks, remembering only too well how much she resisted every advance he's made just to get closer to her, to make her open up to him. He has finally worn her down – and knocked her up real good – and he doesn't even know it.

_I have never even told him how much I love him._

* * *

Standing there and being literally the center of everyone's attention, Michael felt naked. But he doesn't mind that much as long as he wasn't harmed. They'll be more sorry if they did harm him _._  The Sundals has long beaten up and killed the doctor, the meek part of himself that had no place in the life they had planned out for him. They transformed him into their best chance of finally defeating the vampires. Human military plus lycan army equals the end of the vampire nation. It was ambitious of them, really, Michael realizes, especially now that the latter's force was the best it has been in years, centuries even. Three new Elders, led by the one who's killed their last two, had emerged after their last great battle against the lycans.

_Yes,_  Michael thinks, he could take their stares for now, their gazes that judged him by the man he was in his dark olive uniform.  _Look at me all you want,_  he says mentally with gritted teeth.  _I'm not here for any of you._

There was a loud barging sound from above, past the large staircase in the middle of the hall, heavy doors being opened. But when the three figures came, there was nothing to be heard.

Except maybe angels singing in his head – because  _there_  she was.

Michael has never believed it possible, that someone could be so arrested, be so  _enthralled_ , by the mere sight of another, stranger or a long lost love, that time doesn't stop but only slows down, if only to let two souls meet and take in each other a lifetime longer. At this very moment, he could not be more wrong.

He forgets himself as he stares unabashedly at the woman who has up until now, kept him awake in his dreams. Selene was inexplicably more  _otherworldly_  in real life, descending ever so slowly down the steps of the marbled staircase, never taking her eyes off him. The heat of her gaze sends shivers down his spine.  _Damn it all to hell,_  he thinks, almost chastising himself,  _she's so fucking beautiful._

_What were you thinking coming here, Michael?_

A strong tug on the chains that restrained him pulls him back to his current state. It was David.

He yanks back, feeling rebellious. He was ready to give the vampire a taste of his own UV-filled medicine. But then:

"Stay still. I'm cutting it off." David says simply, eyes darting to him and Selene. Michael looks at her again then, anger dissipating almost instantly.

"Michael," she says, almost breathlessly.

Later he will regret his response: a short nod and the casual, safe, "Selene." Later, he will hate himself for not telling her the truth about David and of the real reason why he had come. It doesn't matter, and wouldn't matter for the days that lie ahead, because later still, much much later, as they lay in bed, sheets tangled around their equally entwined bodies, he will confess that he had meant to ask,  _"What are you doing for the rest of your life?"_  instead of just saying her name.


	9. The Stranger and The Lover

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, thank you so much to all the people reading, following, favoriting and reviewing this fic! Enjoy reading this chapter! *wink wink*
> 
> More notes at the end...
> 
> Disclaimer: I don't own Underworld nor any of its beautiful characters.

That wasn't how Eve had imagined her mother and father's reunion would be. She dreamt of him running to her with a look of longing in his face, as he sweeps the love of his life off her feet. Another possible scenario would be of them kissing. Passionately. Forgetting the rest of the world, they would cling to each other, locked in a tight embrace.

Eve breathes out a deep sigh.

_It was supposed to be romantic._

It was supposed to be the most romantic thing in the entire world. Mother having the ice-cold heart, then father comes into her life, takes her breath away and becomes the only man who gets through that once indestructible wall she's built around herself. Selene had painted such a picture of Michael that Eve was left more than just disappointed. She was also very sad.

A nod. Father gave mom a nod. He hasn't seen her in fifteen years and he gives her a shake of the head as a greeting. If Eve didn't know any better, if her blood didn't feel so powerful flowing under her skin, one that can only be from both immortal species, if she didn't have this man's eyes and her face wasn't the exact copy of the queen who stood before him, she and everyone else would have thought she was another couple's child, one who at least appeared to have loved each other once upon a time.

_At least father looked stunned seeing mother._ Eve smiles despite the circumstances.  _If nothing else, mother's beauty never fails to amaze._

_And father looked not so bad himself._

Eve has always imagined Michael as how Selene describes him, almost always in  _poetic_  undertones. She hadn't been lying nor exaggerating. And she said he was a healer, a savior of the weak and wounded – everything her mother wasn't. Maybe that's why she was so drawn to him in the first place. He makes him remember her humanity. And so she thought of him as such. Not the soldier he was now – wearing dirty, green fatigues instead of clean, white robes a doctor like him should wear.

"I...Can I talk to you in private?" Father asks mom, expectant but all serious looking – almost business-like. And...

_Was that a stutter?_ His face visibly reddens and Eve was suddenly overcome with the desire to be able to see through either of her parents' eyes at will, just to know what they were thinking of at this very moment.

Mother stops her descent, eyes furrowing in confusion, struggling. Eve knew why. She sees what her mother sees. It was Michael, and not the least bit of recognition in his eyes. There was undeniable attraction, yes – a big yes at that, but there was something else...Michael looked at the mother of his child like he would look at someone who was in command, almost acknowledging her as authority.

Eve also notices her mother's hands ball into fists at her sides, undoubtedly controlling herself from...what? How does one react to seeing someone you love return from the dead? One should run to them, like mom would have run before for father, but right now...

"Of course." Selene's voice betrays no emotion and her face was just as indifferent. She was back to cutting herself off from the rest of the world, and sadly, from Michael. Standing straighter, she turns her back on the only man she'd ever loved and climbs back on the steps she just recently descended upon. Without being told, Varga motions for father to follow mother.

As the three of them left the ballroom, Eve then turns her attention back to David, looking down at him from where she stood hiding – behind a curtain wall. She never saw him as a father figure, no matter how hard he's tried to seek after mother's affections. But he was a friend anyway. A good friend. He was special to her, mostly because she had met him the same time she had met Selene and he cared for her long before her mother ever did. He was sweet, comforting, and familiar. Like a pillow she keeps by her side at night. But the longer she was looking at David now, watching the fire in his eyes as he stared at the empty stairway, all Eve saw was a stranger.

* * *

The walk from the Winter Garden to Selene's private quarters was longer than usual. The dark stone walls of the castle close in on her, almost suffocating. She felt dizzy and numb at the same time. And she felt cold.  _So cold._  Her already frosty blood seems to seep through her very skin, wanting to get out of it, to wrap itself on the pale surface of her arms. The presence of Michael behind her seemed to suck all the life from her, all the warmth she so little owned. She has never felt the worst of her immortality as she felt it now.

_Is this how Eve felt when I first saw her?_  Selene visibly shakes from the chill her body was exuding as she wraps her arms around herself.

"Cold, Selene?" It took a moment for her to realize it was Varga who spoke from somewhere behind her.

He never calls her by name. Not when there were others besides them. She has a strong suspicion that he takes so much pleasure in annoying her with his royal addresses.

_I thought it was Michael._ She sighs. Even his name she recites in her head hurt in ways she could not express.

"I'll ask Colin to put more wood in the furnace," Varga continues.

"It's alright." She dismisses him calmly. Then feeling bold, and  _inexplicably stupid:_ "Are you cold, Michael?" She half turns her head, engaging him in small talk.

"I'm alright," was his short reply.

_That went remarkably well._

_What would you have done if he said yes, Selene? Would you have given her your coat?_ She reprimands herself, internally forcing rationality back to her weak side. The side that misses the man clothed with the enemy's uniform behind her, that wants nothing more than to embrace Michael,  _her_ Michael, and never let go.

"Can I ask where we're going?" He says a minute later, in the same abrupt manner.

"You wanted privacy. We're going to my chambers."

* * *

"…We're going to my chambers."

Michael focuses in on this piece of information and repeats it in his head.

It doesn't help stop the storm of feelings that has been raging inside him.

He lets out a deep breath, takes a pause on staring at the back of Selene's head and gives the man beside him a glance. He was almost as tall as him, Michael observes. His hair was also notably blonde, but on the lighter shade. He finds himself suddenly annoyed by this, like how he found it annoying that David's eyes had the same blue as Selene's. Which was ridiculous in itself since he knew almost all the vampires had the same eyes when they turned.

The blonde man quickens his speed and gets ahead of Selene as they finally stop in front of a tall double doors, like the rest of the castle, it was dark and shiny but made of wood. The man pulls out a key from his pocket.

_He has a key to Selene's room. Who was this man?_

"You can leave us, Varga." Selene says when  _Varga_ has managed to open one side of the door.

He looks at her longer than necessary. "Are you sure?"

"Of course I'm sure."

"Very well. I'll…" He looks down a little, brows furrowed, looking very hesitant. Then, making up his mind, he lets out a sigh of defeat. "I'll be out here if you need me."

Varga steps aside and Selene enters her room. Michael follows shortly and closes the heavy door behind him.

Now they were alone.

* * *

Selene could not recall the last time she and Michael were in a confined space, not that her private quarters was small and tight and restricting for that matter. In fact she has the largest room in the entire Eastern Coven, even bigger than her old one at Ördögház. She tries to sort through her memories for that last encounter as she takes off her fur coat. Because her massive dome of a room was suddenly too hot for her.

That's when she remembers. Their last...

She feels the heat of the blush on her cheeks and curses the heavens for her pale skin.  _Of all the things you could think of right now,_ she reprimands herself for the nth time tonight. There were far more important things she needs to concentrate her thoughts on. Like what does she do with a Michael who doesn't seem to remember her? How does she deal with that? How will she tell him about their daughter?  _Should_   _she even tell him?_

Her thoughts darken as she considers what David had said. Selene needed no further convincing.

Michael was indeed a Sundal soldier.

The Sundal army was formed years ago, just a few months after she had killed Marius, and it was run by both humans and lycans. The two species no doubt thought they could take on the vampires when they combined forces. They send out a set of troops every now and then, scattered all over the woods surrounding the castle, waiting, for something that Selene cares less to find out about. Her only concern is that they never attacked. Nonetheless David lived for it. He lived for the thrill of fighting the soldiers and lycans whenever they get a little closer than they should, for presenting the  _defeated_  men before her, ones who were too weak to fight, and ones who had conceded. And because Selene was no longer the ruthless and unforgiving Death Dealer she once was, she lets them all go. Much to David's disappointment.

"...Hi."

Selene starts as she remembers where she was and who she was with. Turning her head, her eyes meets Michael's and that particular tug at her heart, that pull she thought she'd never feel ever again, makes her more warm all over.

"Hi," she whispers, almost sheepishly.

He was a new man all of a sudden then as he puts his hands inside the pockets of his tight fatigue trousers and stares avidly at the floor of her room. He clears his throat and slowly recaptures her eyes again. "So..."

Selene doesn't know how it happened, who moved first, or who has lost all sense of reason and finally reached out to the other. But suddenly she finds herself kissing Michael within an inch of his life.

Somewhere, deep in the dark recesses of her centuries-old brain, reason screamed:  _Oh god. This is wrong. This is so wrong. We need to talk first…Sort out...things. Stop this nonsense right now, Selene._

_...Or maybe later._

She pushes his chest gently, prying her lips away from his for a moment, as she catches her breath. One could not accuse her later of not fighting against this, against being inebriated by everything that was…Michael. She breathes out his name, panting, and as she was just about to take a long good look at his face, he cups her jaw with both hands and kisses her again. It was a slow, almost reverent kiss. He kisses her like how he makes love to her. With that thought, she smiles against his lips and gives in for a few seconds, letting him worship her mouth as her own hands gripped his much shorter hair. They were like that for what feels like hours, or maybe years for Selene, until Michael can't take the slow burn anymore and pulls away abruptly to which she groans out a whine of protest, only to pull her against him by the hips. She gasps out loud, surprised, and now very much aroused. There was a full body mirror behind Michael and she could see her eyes have turned their infamous electric blue.

"Oh, god. I'm sorry, I–" He lets go of her, realizing he was moving too fast, too soon. He takes a step back.

_By the saints, I must be losing my mind,_ Selene concludes as she reaches for his hands and brings them back to hold her waist. Then she puts her own on his shoulders, this time pushing her cold body against his warm one. They were so close again now. A silent agreement passes between them.  _Hold on. Hold on for a few heart beats and let me take you in._  And so they stood there in a loose embrace, staring at each other's faces. There was a quiet sort of adoration in Michael's gaze that wasn't there earlier and it took Selene's breath away, much more than all their kissing had.

"Selene." One of Michael's hands caresses her cheek. He closes his eyes and brings his head down to hers until their foreheads touched.

Then the doors burst open, startling them so much they jumped a few feet apart.

Selene consciously runs her fingers through her messy hair and looks at Varga, shooting daggers at his flustered face.

"I…I'm sorry–" He turns his back at them. "I've been calling you for  _ages_ ," he says to the doorway. "And well...Never mind." He walks straight ahead and closes the doors with a bang.

Alone with Michael once again, she regains some sense of control this time. She points out to an armchair by the fireplace. "Please take a seat, Michael."

He looks at her with one eyebrow raised. It was kind of sexy and she loathes herself as she decides to ignore his subtle flirting.

"I have something to tell you."


	10. Fathers and A Whipped Angel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own Underworld nor any of its beautiful characters.

Three years ago

When David arrives at the Nordic Coven, it was Lena who greeted him. Her normally kept hair was unbraided, messy, and it reminded him so much of how she had looked when they had fought Marius's lycan horde alongside each other. It wasn't just her appearance, the air smelled of the dead. He had smelled it in the breeze on the way here – rendering it useless of him to bring men from the Eastern Coven. The battle was over and won. Tonight was a repeat of a bloodshed that this frozen coven could, again, have done without. And David felt so sorry.

"Are you okay, Lena? Where are they?" He asks with urgency, silently worrying more about Eve than Selene or anyone else for that matter.

She was just a child.

_Not mine,_  a voice in his head reminds him.  _But as good as_ , he counters under his breath.

And Selene,  _the Elders help her_ , was a warrior – not a mother. And the incident tonight was more proof that she wasn't fit to be her daughter's sole protector.

"I'm alright, David. Thank you." Lena touches his arm, pulling him away from his thoughts, and gives him a sad smile. "And so are Selene and Eve. Eve is sleeping in my bedchamber. I suggest we let her rest for now."

David agrees. "Alright. What about Selene?"

* * *

They were in the highest tower. David understands how Selene has wanted solace – she seems to seek it more often these past few days. But he wondered why she didn't go to the undercroft, where the Nordic vampires usually stay to have the peace and quiet they wanted. It was also where she was cocooned to gain the powers no other immortal has ever had, powers only she possessed. He would have wanted to see her fight again. It was such a sight to behold, the great Death Dealer in combat. It was one of the very first things he had admired about her. One couldn't see her in a finer form than she would be when holding a gun. And that is why he's more than confident that she would be one of mind with him when he presents his proposal.

"I'm tired of fighting, David." Selene says without looking at him. Not even a shrug in his direction. She currently stood by the window, leaning against it with arms crossed, staring out into the dark sky that always surrounds the coven's castle.

He clenches his fist but remains calm when he tries to reason with her. "Selene, if you just reconsider–"

"I have." This time she turns her head and looks at him in the eye. "This is not the way, David. You know that."

"Then you're no different to my coward of a father."

"David." He's got her full attention now. "Stop it." She reaches forward to touch his arm and he yanks it away. "Your father knew there was nothing to be gained in–"

"What if they have Michael?"

Both stopped and stared at each other. Deep ragged breaths and eyes full of emotion, his was of controlled rage and hers…there were tears threatening to fall down from her eyes and...

David aches for her then. He aches to hold her and shield her away from all the pain that she felt, all the hurt she's had to endure all because of a man she wasn't supposed to love. If she would just let him, he could be everything she would ever need, a friend, a guardian. A father to Eve. And yet she longed for another. One who wasn't even there, not anymore.

"Michael is dead."

David was taken aback. It was the first time he had ever heard her say it since she told him of Marius's blood memories.  _Had she finally accepted the truth of Michael's demise?_

"Is he?" He challenged. His heart was racing now.

"I've made my peace…I'm trying to make peace with it."

Selene has just confessed something profound and meaningful to him.

_She was letting him go._   _She was finally letting go of Michael._

"You should let go too." She adds on, now turning her back on him again.

What little happiness he was allowed to have she shattered all too soon, as he fully understands what she was telling him.

She wasn't going to fight the Sundals.

"What has happened to you? Where is the ruthless warrior I know? The one who will kill for everyone she loves? Your daughter–"

"Is here!" Selene whirls back around and now she lets the tears fall. "Eve is here." Her voice trembles and she looks a hundred years older as she pleads with him. "She's here, David...and finally can live a life she deserves. And I'm not going to lose her by starting a war that's long been won over."

"If you believe she is safe now – you're wrong. What happened earlier was just the beginning. Those were from the new forces the humans have just gathered and formed, Selene. They're not through with us just yet."

"Then what would you have me do?"

_Let me in,_ he wills her desperately _. Let me handle this, fight this war for you._

"I just saw my daughter kill almost half a hundred men," she continues. "The child of Michael, who, if you had known him, would rather die himself than watch his only child slaughter anyone! He'd have protected her…Would have done everything to keep her away from all of that. He would have stopped Eve from becoming me."

"But he's not here to do that."

He knows he has just made the biggest mistake of his life in saying that. He was losing her. He was losing her even before he can have her.

"I could not believe you right now." She says very quietly, disbelief and anger in her now very blue eyes.

He doesn't stop her when she leaves.

And he lets the cold consume him.

* * *

The Present

He could not believe the woman in front of him.

Selene was seated opposite Michael, in another armchair that was much closer to the fireplace than the one he was on. She was talking to him nonstop for a couple of minutes now. Saying things and words he's yet to try to piece out together later as his mind grasps the… _absolute craziness_  of everything that has happened in the last half hour.

She kissed me.

_And I kissed her back!_

We kissed.

_And was about to do more than just kiss..._

These four exact thoughts were on a loop inside Michael's mush of a brain right now. And one party of that glorious kissing session was now talking and acting like she didn't just devour the other party – who was barely two feet away from her – not less than five minutes ago.

It was killing him.

_I hope she doesn't notice I'm not taking a single word she was saying._  He used this chance to really look at her. Her face was still flushed but her hair really wasn't all that messed up – he can't say the same about his.

He runs a hand through his hair and prays she wouldn't notice.  _Yep, she was a grabber alright._

He examines her mouth as he tidies up his messy curls. Her lips were still a bit swollen.

Michael gulps and stops his wandering eyes and lets it stay on her mouth.

He wants to kiss her again.

_What will happen if I just...lean over and…? Will she let me–_

"…Michael."

He starts. "I'm sorry. I–What?"

"Have you…Did you even listen to anything I've just said?"

He tries to look apologetic and fails. Rubbing his face with both hands, he lets out a heavy sigh and tries to explain himself. "I...Sorry. I'm really distracted right now and a bit...concussed."

He wasn't lying about that. His head was throbbing. The pain was minimal but he felt it all the same and his body ached all over. He's just realized he hasn't slept for over twenty hours now – and he smelled like shit. He was a soldier but he's just about exhausted his strength – physical and mental – what with coming here, trying to fight David – only to end up getting himself beaten up to the ground – and of course,  _that_  kiss...

His head was reeling…Literally.

"I think I need to lie down."

* * *

Michael got Selene incredibly worried with that statement.

She stands up quickly and walks over to him. Gently laying the back of her hand on his forehead, she bends down, cradling his face with the other hand and looks at him straight in the eyes. The striking deep blue-green beauty of it was almost enough to have her thoughts careening off again into the blissful abyss where she only associates with Michael.

Almost.

One of them needs to function and with him clearly about to pass out any time now, she needs to have just even an ounce of  _self respect_. She takes a deep breath.

His eyes seemed dazed when she examines them, unfocused. And the flush of his face was fading. He was looking paler and paler by the minute.

"Selene…I–" He whispers to her.

She ignores the tingling sensation in her stomach from the way he says her name and continues fussing over him by now moving her hand down on his neck. It was warmer than normal.

_What's happened to you, Michael?_

Before she can ask him, his eyes finally roll back to his eyelids and his head sways unconscious and sags into her chest.

He's fainted.

* * *

Eve was surprised to find Varga outside her mother's room.

"Hey." She greets him.

"Hullo, princess." He says in return, giving her his usual disarming smile and Eve can't help but blush. The Eastern Coven wasn't perfect – she preferred the frozen walls of the Nordic – but it certainly did not lack of attractive and amusing men.

"Is fath–the Sundal soldier with mother inside?"

Varga doesn't miss her slip of the tongue. "Yes, your  _father_  and mother are in there." He leans in and wiggles his eyebrows at her then whispers intriguingly: "Snogging."

"What?!" Eve was so shocked that she forgets to pretend not to know what  _snogging_  means. "I mean..."

But he just smirks at her. "Relax. I'm not your mother." He leans on the wall beside the door with his arms crossed and motions for her to do the same.

_They were snogging_.

Wow.

_I knew it._

_I knew it!_

She felt so giddy with excitement that she jumps in place and tackles Varga with a hug.

He indulges her for a bit and even twirls her around once. But when he puts her down, he gets serious again. "Are you nervous, Eve?" He asks, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.

"I...Yeah, a little bit." She admits, feeling like a child again.

"But are you happy?"

Smiling widely at him, she nods. "Incredibly so."

"Good. Because that's the only thing that matters."

They were quiet for a while, then Varga does something he's never done before. He kisses her forehead.

Eve was deeply touched.

"You're a wonderful kid," he continues. "You're your mother's entire world, d'you know that?"

"Really?" Eve  _did_  know that but having Selene as your mother...Well, let's just say no one can ever tell with Selene.

"Of course you are. And now you'll be your father's too." He moves away from her and leans on the wall again. "Once he wakes up."

_What?_

"Wakes up? Why? What happened?"

* * *

Selene was watching Michael sleep.

They were in her bedchambers, the largest area of her private quarters. And he was on her bed, sleeping soundlessly.

_Even when asleep he was an angel._

It's the first time she's allowed to watch him like this, vulnerable and untainted with troubles – troubles only she had inflicted on him – not since that time he had saved her from drowning. Not even the one time they made love ages ago was she able to mark him with her eyes. He was gone by the time she had woken up.

She would have watched him then, if given the chance. And why not? Michael is achingly beautiful, the kind of beautiful that makes one wonder what expected consequence or burden he's had to endure in return for having such almost perfect features.

_I believe I'm_ that _burden._

He gently stirs, cutting off Selene's thoughts. He was moaning something but doesn't wake.

She tentatively moves closer to her bed.

_He looks so human,_ she observes _, was never fit to be anything but human...There never was a place for you in the only world I know, Michael. I'm so sorry for ever ruining your life._

She takes another step again, her thighs were touching the mattress now, and then...she smells it.

Michael... _smelled_. And not a good one at that.

Selene scrunches her nose and was about to call Varga again to change Michael's clothes when a thought occurs to her.

_He'll see him naked._

Maybe she should just –  _No!_

_I'll_  see him naked.

She smacks a hand on her forehead. Do not be a foolish maiden, Selene.  _You're not even that anymore._

_And you've seen everything there is to see._

But that was ages ago. And he's a  _soldier_  now.

She sighs and braves her way to him again and undos the first button of Michael's Sundal uniform. She lets out a breath she's unaware she's been holding, also exhaling the foulness of him from her nose when she does.

_Quite the turn-off._

She knelt on the bed now and goes to work, a scowl plastered on her face. The stink of him was beginning to spread to the sheets – her precious sheets – but that was why she was changing his clothes  _right, Selene?_  She was a woman who likes things uncomplicated and there is nothing more simple than undressing an unconscious man. And so undress him she did.

When she was done unbuttoning his top her fingers linger on the buckle of his belt and she finds herself at a crossroads.

She realizes then that she wasn't brave enough.

No way was she going to do anything anywhere near  _that_.

_Not right now at least,_ Selene thinks guiltily, biting her lower lip with one fang.

Moving on from his untouched belt, she goes back to the now exposed torso and pointedly ignores the perfection of it, tanned and toned to the last bit of muscle.

She scowls again.

Pulling one shoulder and upper arm, she flips him over to lie on his stomach so she can fully get rid of the thick uniform he's wearing.

And that's when she sees it. A lot of it.

There were deep slashes on his back, wide open burns. Blood from the long slits stained the tattered back of his shirt and now her sheets.

She touches one of them lightly. There were extracts of silver nitrate left on the burned skin. Whip gashes of it.

David's weapon of choice.

Selene's jaw tightens and she physically restrains herself from throwing something within arm's reach. She stands up and storms her way out of her quarters instead.

In her fury she forgets one important detail, possibly the most important detail from her accidental discovery of Michael's wounds.

The blood from them were not dried blood and the cuts were not healing.


	11. First, Last, and Lost Times

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to all who's following this story! I hope you'll love this chapter! :)
> 
> Disclaimer: I don't own Underworld nor any of its beautiful characters.

The Present

The doors to Selene's quarters trembled in their hinges as the furious queen wrenches the handles open from the inside. She emerged, hot white fire in her eyes, which Varga almost doesn't see as she just shot out a command, "stay here," with barely a glance in his direction. But all the same she did a double take when she notices Eve over his shoulder.

She abruptly stops her tormented flight.

"Eve." Selene's voice softens for a while as she walks slowly this time over to them. "I'm sorry, I…" He could feel her suppressed anger as she fights off her natural instinct to flee to god knows where without explanation. If her daughter wasn't here Varga was certain she would have done it by now.

Although it wouldn't be the first time Selene has totally forgotten that she had a daughter.

"Your father's in there but he's – he's unconscious." She closes her eyes for a moment, clearly trying to compose herself in front of Eve –  _she didn't have to know and what she doesn't know won't kill her._ When she opens them again they were still in their hybrid white. He has only ever seen her once with eyes as such and it terrified him now as it did him then.

"I want you to be very brave now, do you understand?" Selene continues, cradling her daughter's face.

Eve nods obediently but doesn't speak.

"Watch over your father while I…I have some business to attend to."

 _One nasty business,_  Varga can't help but think. He touches the handle of his sword on his side, mentally preparing himself for what he knows will come.

"What if he wakes up?" The panic in Eve's voice was evident and he couldn't fault her.

Of course the child was nervous. Varga was quite familiar with the tale of how Selene had reacted the moment she discovered she has a daughter – one she didn't even remember giving birth to.  _Or didn't know she was pregnant with,_  he contemplates.

"Then he'll think he's in heaven if the very first thing he sees is you." Selene gives her daughter a smile, a genuine one.

Varga looks away, trying to give them some privacy.

"Is he alright, mom?" Eve asks, finally letting out her worry.

"He will be. And I'll make sure he stays that way."

_Someone's going to have his bones crushed tonight._

"Now go on inside, my love."

Eve does as she was told and Varga puts in a word before Selene could command him again.

"Don't even try to persuade me not to follow you." He says firmly.

"Varga–"

"I'm not leaving you, Selene. Not with those eyes you have right now. It can only mean trouble."

* * *

It turns out it's David that will have his bones crushed tonight.

The vampire was now spitting huge amounts of blood as he was on his knees in front of Selene.

Before she could hurt him again, he begs for mercy. "Selene...Please–"

She takes hold of him by the throat, singlehandedly lifting him off the floor, and then she throws him at one of the low-hanged chandeliers.

It was a spectacle and a nightmare for the vampires of the Eastern Coven. Selene was infamous for her ruthlessness but she had never hurt anyone, not since that battle with Marius and the Lycans. And even before then the wrath of the most powerful immortal alive was only ever been heard of, and never been witnessed. Until tonight.

"Talk while you can. You've got two seconds."

Only two seconds. Because that was how short it took for her to almost  _fly_  to him again. And David only just responded, and weakly.

"I–It was only for self defense. Please, Selene–"

Most of the Death Dealers were here now, having been from the training grounds below. They stood watch, weapons held in arms and aimed at their queen. Varga has long held out his sword too – everyone knew where his loyalties lie – but he doesn't need to give out an order. Nobody will ever dare to face Selene.

And so everyone in the ballroom held their breath.

Selene lifts David again, and this time carries him – still with a death grip on his neck – and slams his body on a wall, all without releasing her hold. She does this two more times before letting him fall down to the floor, along with the debris from the smashes on the dark concrete. David was shaking and coughing out uncontrollably, trying desperately to seep in air back into his broken lungs. If the blood of Selene wasn't flowing through his veins he would have died right now.

Varga runs over to them, slowing and stopping right behind his queen. Only he heard her say:

"That would be the first and the last time you will hurt him. Do you hear me, David?"

* * *

When her mother comes back from wherever she had gone to earlier, father was still asleep.

Selene, who was now more…in control, goes to her and kisses the top of her head. Eve looks at her mother in the eyes and sees anger and resentment there.

She also smells blood.

_She has hurt someone._

Eve decides to let her mother be for now, especially as she sees her now watching her beloved Michael.

The kiss was Selene's way of saying  _thank_   _you_ , Eve believes, for not only did she stay true to her word that she'd watch over her father, she had also cleaned and dressed his wounds.

Selene walks closer, over to the side of the bed where Michael was, and collapses on a nearby chair. She was asleep not long after.

It wasn't how she had imagined them all three reuniting alright, but nonetheless, Eve felt very happy right now. She smiles openly from where she currently sat – on the hard, rotating chair of her mother's makeshift office – as she watches her parents asleep together.

* * *

Eve has also fallen asleep and wakes up sometime later, to see her father sitting on the bed.

He was staring intently at a sleeping Selene.

Eve had to clamp a hand over her mouth to stop a surprised gasp from escaping and drawing attention to herself. Never had she felt like an intruder inside her mother's chambers.

But she was now.

Michael was caught up in a whole other world of his own as he watches her mother with such affection that Eve was sure Selene must be melting from his gaze right now. Her father reaches out a hand and gently brushes away her mother's hair from her face. A scowl forms Selene's features from the touch.

Eve hears her father chuckle for the very first time and she giggles silently with him.  _Oh, mom._

 _He doesn't know I'm here_ , Eve thinks. Her mother's desk wasn't that far from the enormous bed but father must have seen her mother first when he had woken up, and since then had disregarded everyone or anything else that might be inside the room.

And so Eve continues being invisible to him as she now witnesses another swoon-worthy act from her father.

Michael moves forward to stand in front of Selene. Then he slowly bends down and gathers her in his arms. Still having her signature scowl on, her mother stirs but doesn't fully wake. One of her hands wounds its way over to father's broad and bare shoulder though, unknowingly helping him hug her closer to his chest.

_And unknowingly, father is fulfilling all of my dreams of him and mother together come true._

He smiles at the woman now in the safety of his arms and lays a soft kiss on her head before settling her gently back down on the bed.

"How did you know she likes to be on the right side?"

* * *

It was lucky he had already laid Selene down when the voice from somewhere behind startles him.

Michael turns his head and was no less than shocked to see his own eyes staring at him.

The girl, no,  _a young woman_ , who also has a face very much like the one who he had just put on the bed, was sat behind a desk across the room.

"Hello." She speaks again, filling in the silence that has settled in after she asked the question out of nowhere. Then, as though testing the word on her tongue for the very first time: "Father."

Michael forgets to breathe then. He could only gaze open mouthed at the girl.

Slowly, he walks toward where she was.

_She called me father. That could only mean…_

"He–Hello. _"_ He stutters back a few moments later, heart punching its way through his chest,  _or gut, or...whatever._  He still could hardly breathe. A million thoughts – questions – were struggling to take hold of his sanity.

He focuses on staring straight at the girl's eyes. Very much like his own. He tries to ignore the rest of her.  _I cannot handle_ that _right now._

Cautiously, Michael looks back at Selene's sleeping form, silently willing her to… _what?_   _Wake up and rescue him again from fainting?_  Because at this moment, he wasn't that far from losing his consciousness again.

He turns back to the girl,  _his daughter,_  and takes a gulp before asking, "What's your name?"

"Eve," she says just as nervously. "My name is Eve."

"Hello...Eve."

The girl smiles and Michael was overcome with such…emotion. He was feeling so much all at once. The smile was unfamiliar compared to the rest of her face – the face of Selene – but it was that one small act that rendered him not merely speechless, but unable to feel anything but pure, unadulterated affection. He reaches for her the same time she moves toward him and they met halfway.

He held her in his arms like he had never held anybody before, burying his face in her dark hair, breathing her in, his child.

_His and Selene's child._

Eve was crying right now and so he pulls away, and tries to soothe her. "Hey, hey. Look at me." He brushes her tears away as he cradles her beautiful face. "I'm here." He kisses her forehead. "I'm here  _now_."

Her daughter gives him another smile through her tear streaked face and engulfs him in another hug.

There are two things Michael now knows for certain.

He will never leave this child.

He knows in his heart he will never have so much love for another ever again as he did now, holding this girl in his arms.

_His daughter._

His and Selene's only child. With his eyes and her beautiful face.

And that he will do everything in his power to keep her from harm.

Both of them.

* * *

(Much, much later…)

Selene and Michael were kissing in the hallway.

It was his doing this time. Even before this inevitable second kiss happened Selene has noticed how he has been finding any passable excuse just to talk to her, to seek her otherwise preoccupied attention – having your lycan lover come back from the dead does not rid a queen of her duties – and of course trail behind her incessantly and  _pathetically_ ("Oh, you were going to the Armory too?" She has a strong suspicion he doesn't even know where the Armory was.) like a lost puppy, hoping, she firmly believes, for an opportunity to have her alone all to himself. Which was ridiculous because he does absolutely  _nothing_  when they're in bed together every single night.

It was driving her bat-shit crazy. Pun very much intended.

 _What was he playing at?_  She would find it endearing if her very own feelings were not on the line. Having accepted the hard truth that he had no real memory of her, save for a few vague dreams, nor of their time together before Antigen happened – regardless of how short it had been, she has resolved to distance herself from him for the time being. No matter how loathe she was to admit that there was some part of her that longed for him to...fall in love with her again, the real her, the one who had walls thicker than ice bricks and a temper shorter than the number of color choices of her wardrobe. She wanted him to love the leather-wearing, ruthless werewolf hunter,  _damn it_ , and if that was selfish than so be it.

It was appearing to be very hard, she realizes not long after, but nothing she hasn't done before. In truth this was how she really was when she first caught Michael's attention – an unfeeling, distant centuries-old vampire.

The challenge was in not seeking his touch. It was in letting go all too soon after an off guard embrace. It was remembering to breathe from his lingering looks, all across any room, the ones that burn right through her long held barriers. The challenge was her not falling madly in love with him. It was supposed to be the other way around, damn it, Selene. The worst of these useless, self-imposed rules, was that sometimes, she just couldn't help herself.

She was chasing him chasing her.

And so after several seconds of submission to a searing kiss, she pushes him gently by the chest and says very firmly: "I need to–" Except she doesn't finish as he was kissing her again. Stubborn hands now moved from cradling her face to burying them in her hair, twisting her head in altering angles as he deepens the kiss even more. He was now unconsciously trying to rut against her body as he pushes her gently against a wall.

Selene was trapped.

Her lycan had very obvious insatiable needs. She wasn't that stupid not to know Michael only acted out of the profound, compulsive – and sometimes needless – wants of men. And who better to satisfy this thirst than the very mother of his child? She was nothing more than a convenience to him and…it breaks her a little inside.

Pushing him off with more force this time, she looks at him pointedly,  _stop_ , as she catches her breath.

She regrets doing so the moment she sees his face fall.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing. I just…"

He was moving away slowly now, giving her breathing space but his hands wound their way to her lower back and linger there, sending shivers down her barely touched and actually covered skin.

"Did I do something wrong? Would you…Don't you want me to do something like this?"

 _Yes._ "No. No, no no. I just…It's just that I really have something to do right now and…You caught me off guard, that's all."

Except that wasn't really all.

_I want you to ask me what I want. I want you to hold me because you need me, that you need to hear the sound of my breathing against your own, to convince yourself that this is not a dream anymore. Tell me you need me, Michael. You need me because you love me._

He visibly relaxes. "I thought you could use the distraction." Then he smiles, unaware of her inner torment. "You've been…working so much these past few days."

"Oh. Well,"  _She needs to get out of here before she breaks down in front of him._  "Thank you, but I really didn't need it."

She doesn't wait for his response to her cold words and leaves him standing there.

She also doesn't hear him whisper, "I know," echoing Selene's own words from lifetimes ago, as he remembers how she had chosen him, how she had chosen to disobey Viktor's orders and save him. He remembers how she threw away the only life she ever knew, breaking all the rules there ever was...just to be with him.

Selene doesn't see him stare at her retrieving form with such longing, so much history, and dreams of their future together in his eyes.

She doesn't see the exact moment Michael starts falling in love with her all over again.


	12. Lycan, Hybrid, and The Death of Selene

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to all who are reading, following and reviewing this story! I hope you like this chapter. :)
> 
> Disclaimer: I don't own Underworld nor any of its beautiful characters.

The Present

Half a fortnight has passed since Michael arrived at the Eastern Coven. There were so many adjustments made in that span of time. He was reintroduced to everyone in the castle as Eve's father and Selene's…Well, there would be no need of any explanation on that matter. The other Sundal soldiers who were with Michael were given rooms of their own, accommodations they were loathed to take and which the vampires were just as loathed to provide. There was more outward respect all around but there was simmering tension underneath as well. It has long been established – by Selene, with grudging approval by the Council – that there will be no need of bloodshed against the Sundal soldiers – human and Lycan – when it can be avoided at all costs. But it would be the very first occurrence that the two, no,  _three_ , species were going to live under one roof.

Only Varga found this highly amusing. He tells this to a very stressed out sovereign.

"Varga. Just…no. Not today, please."

She was currently sat at the center of a long table that was on a raised platform at the far end of the room. It was used for the Elders and Council members when dining. From this view, she can see the entire hall. Round, glass tables were all around the place which was glittered with glamour only a vampire-hosted party can afford to showcase. Blood was poured in wine glasses, and raw meat – from fresh hunts earlier in the twilight – was being served all around.

On her left, sat Varga, who was dutifully filling her glass with red wine – not blood. She was the only one who can drink alcohol for as much as she likes and she'd be foolish not to relish this one sweet pleasure.

On her right sat David, his plate nor glass untouched.

She recalls their recent encounter – much more civil and friendly – and how she had apologized. She had been confused and angry and  _feeling so much_ –

"I understand." David had cut off her onslaught of confessions he knew she hated to disclose.

_You always understand,_ Selene had wished to say back. Never once did he go against anything she chose to do or not do.

_Except for the one time you did, the one time it mattered so much, and I ignored you._

She turned to him beside her now. "Eat, David."

He looks at her, surprised she was talking to him again. "Speak for yourself," he says a while later, mouth trying to quirk into a small and awkward smile.

_He's even worse at this than me._

Selene smiles back awkwardly, then turns her gaze toward the table where Michael and Eve were sat, in the company of Michael's Sundal…friends.

Eve was chatting animatedly with the only woman in the group and Michael was staring at them with a smile on his face. If the woman ( _Katie. This is Katie, Selene. Michael says, smiling fondly at the female soldier,_ ) didn't have striking red hair, all three of them together would look so much more like a family than she was with Michael and Eve.

Selene takes a long sip of her wine and looks down on her plate. She wasn't jealous, or so she denies. She was…tired.

She has just about had enough of the drama of Michael's return. She had missed him of course, and watching him with Eve – finally,  _finally_  – was nothing short of wonderful. Her daughter more than deserves to have the family she had longed to have all her young life. And Michael coming back to her, to  _them_ , completed that dream at last.

But it had also started a nightmare.

Selene stands up and although everyone was preoccupied with eating, drinking, and having a good time, they still took notice of their stunning queen, clad in a black, high slit dress, which hugged her figure and showed off her pale, smooth legs when she walked. She was a vision of incomparable beauty and elegance and she doesn't even know it.

The most beautiful being in the room wordlessly leaves the dining hall.

Varga follows her but only to say: "You know it's rude not to say goodbye."

Selene sighs as she turns back to him and to the whole room at large. They were quiet now, awaiting her speak.

"I hope you're all having a lovely evening. I regret to leave this early, but I…" She trails off for a second as she locks eyes with Michael. "I'm not feeling well."

_And I wouldn't mind you making me feel better._

"Goodnight. I'll see you all tomorrow," she says to everyone, ending her short speech, and leaves with haste. Varga doesn't follow after her this time.

But Michael does.

* * *

He catches up with her in the middle of the dark corridor just outside the dining hall.

He grabs one uncovered arm gently. "Hey."

She turns to face him but doesn't smile nor do anything with her face for that matter. "Hey."

"Are you okay?" He says with a worried expression and doesn't even seem fazed by the fact that he was the only one allowed to gaze at her exposed cleavage – and at such close distance – without enduring a backhand slap on the face. He doesn't even look at anywhere below her head. He was genuinely concerned about her and she found that weirdly even sexier than the prospect of his wandering eyes caressing her body.

"Yeah. Just a bit…fuzzy." She looks down and brushes a strand of hair behind her ear. "Must be the wine."

"Oh. Right. Do you want me to…Uhm," Michael splutters, scratching the back of his short hair but still doesn't stare down at her barely clothed chest. "I could...keep you...company, you know, when you're…resting."

_Wow. He's even worse than David._

Instead of doing an eye roll, Selene closes her eyes and says coolly. "I'm sure you'd be good company but...I'm not sure I will be, since, you know…" She feels her cheeks burning a little – it's the alcohol – and she realizes she was sounding just as stupid as he was right now. "I'd be in bed,"  _Such profound and astute knowledge, Selene._  "…resting."

They looked at each other with dazed expressions.

Finally, Michael looks down abruptly, the briefest of stolen glances, but she caught the movement of his eyes anyway. Selene mentally bites down the sudden double urge to shake him by the shoulders and scream,  _this is all yours! I have never been anything but yours,_  and also desiring nothing more than for the ground to open up, and consume her as well as her ludicrous thoughts just about this instant.

Michael visibly swallows before turning away from her and puts his hands inside the pocket of his formal trousers. "Alright. I'll just…"

Then, he turns back, leans forward, and gives her a quick kiss on the cheek.

She was taken aback with this and grabs the front of his dress shirt when he pulls away after the kiss – trying to balance herself.

Now really embarrassed for prolonging his intended short invasion of her personal space, Selene kisses one of his cheeks too and lets him go just as quickly as well.

She then clears her throat as she looks down determinedly at the floor. "Goodnight, Michael," she mumbles and leaves him in the dark corridor.

"Feel better soon," he hurriedly adds.

_Well, good luck about that._

"Thank you," Selene shouts back, not even glancing over her shoulder.

* * *

Selene moves to lie on her back on her bed, now fully naked but alone. She was finally alone again. And she was good with it. The quiet made her  _think_.

_He came out of nowhere._

And just  _now_...  _Why just now?_ After all these years, he was alive and yet…

_Who are you, Michael? What have they done to you?_

_Why did they let you go?_

She forces her eyes shut, willing to suppress the inevitable pain of a memory.

_"What if they have Michael?"_

_They both stop and gaze at each other meaningfully. David's eyes were challenging. Hers felt so heavy from the pool of tears that threatened to fall. She stops them from doing so. She will not break down. She was tired of breaking down._

_"Michael is dead."_

_She hears her own words but does not listen. Not with her heart, she doesn't. It was as stubborn as it was unfeeling. It cannot and will not take the truth, will never take any reality without Michael in it. But David doesn't need to know that._

_And so she tells him what he needs to know._

The present Selene opens her eyes, then lies on her left side and lets the tears go this time. She cries silently, gripping the pillow on her head.

_David was right._

_I should have come after you, Michael. I'm so sorry._

She buries her face in the same pillow that welcomed her tears. One of her hands gently touches the empty space beside her. The space where Michael should be.

Her body welcomed the cold that accompanied her in sleep.

* * *

Earlier, before the feast

"I'll have Varga prepare you a chamber of your own later," Selene says while she pulls her hair up into a ponytail, its white ends shining in the light, a stark contrast to the low cut dress she was wearing.

Michael stood near the doorway, watching her prepare for dinner.

She doesn't need to look at him to gauge how he had taken that statement from her. It came out exactly as she had hoped it would. She needed time away. Away from him…from everything. At least for now.

"Oh. Well…Okay." He responds a little longer and his voice sounded hurt and...

She tries to explain but then –

Michael laughs.

She turns to him quickly, surprised.

"What did he tell you?"

Confused, Selene could only frown at him.

"David." Michael didn't hide the spite from the way he says his name. "You trust him more than me." He says it like an accusation.

_Well, that's just not fair._

"I don't know you!" Selene lets out in desperation. She sees him taking a step back. Hastily rectifying the implication of her outburst, she continues more calmly, "And you don't know me, Michael."

She puts down the comb on the dress table and walks over to where he was.

He accepts both of her outstretched hands in his, squeezing them gently as he pulls her closer. He gazes into her eyes she guesses were now turning back into their brown orbs.

"We're acting out of…familiarity." She whispers to his face. "I'm clinging to a past that's long been gone, and you...I don't even know what you–"

"Home," Michael says simply.

"What?"

"Every time I look at you, I–When I first saw you…I felt like coming home."

Selene was quiet for a while. How could she respond to that?  _How does one answer to that?_

She lowers her head and closes her eyes. A moment later she feels Michael's lips gently touch her forehead. He then lets go of her hands and circles his arms around her, enveloping her in a loose embrace.

Her arms crawl their way up to his back, tightening their hold on each other. She buries her face in between his neck and shoulder, once more forgetting that she was supposed to be cold, rational, and resisting the warmth of his Lycan blood.

Right then she knew what her answer should be.

She moves away from him, only so she could meet his eyes again. "Do you even have the faintest idea who I am?"

* * *

The Present

Michael watches Selene leave for the second time that night and he rubs his hands on his face then runs it through his hair.

_Should I go after her?_

He moves to do so then stops again.

_Don't be stupid, Michael. She just downright let you down easy. Take the hint._

Michael sighs and sits down on the cold castle floor and thinks back to what had transpired between them earlier.

_"I made you who you are. I had no choice, Michael. I–"_

" _Wait." He interrupts her, feeling more confused by the second. "What are you talking about?"_

" _You're not_ just  _a Lycan," Selene says, almost pleading, and grabs one of his hands and puts it on her thinly covered chest. Her heartbeat heats his palm. Michael reminds himself to breathe._

" _Do you feel that?" She says softly, almost intimately._

" _I–"_

_The hand not holding his reaches forward and rests on his own heart. "Our heartbeats are in sync. My blood is in yours just as much as yours is inside me." She was saying all of this to him as if she was stating a fact. "Do you understand, Michael?"_

_He just looked at her then, so caught up in her…nearness, her presence mere inches from him. Their heartbeats beating in…They weren't–_

" _No. I don't understand."_

_Her face falls but she recovers all too soon, and when she does, she moves away from him a little and closes her eyes. She was like this for a while, frowning one second then again in another, sorting out things behind the back of her eyelids…_

_Then, she opens them again. They were now white instead of brown or blue._

_Michael takes a step back, surprised. She moves forward at the same time, never allowing him room to breathe air she wasn't taking in herself. He felt trapped and saved at the same time._

_Without dropping her gaze on him, she raises an arm toward her face and…She bites on her wrist._

_Michael smells it even before seeing it flow endlessly down her arm and into the floor. Nostrils flaring and jaw tightening, he gulps down the rush of lust he suddenly felt. And it wasn't because of Selene barely wearing anything in front of him._

_He understands then what she was trying to do._

" _No." He says firmly, trying to move away again from her._

_She grabs him with one hand, extending the other – her wounded wrist – to him. "Drink, Michael." Her mouth was full of the red, wet sweetness of her._

_"No, I won't." He says through gritted teeth this time. "I don't want to – to take from you."_

_Selene stops her assault then, softening. She reaches out to caress his cheek. "You won't hurt me. I promise." Her assuring words do not soothe him. He was very much aware of his_ savagery  _when he fed and he will not lose control, not with her. He…cared so much to hurt her that way._

_And yet he can't help his mouth watering, his resolve weakening, as she was so much closer now._

No, his mind rebels still. If you submit to this, Michael, you will bleed her dry.

_Michael closes his eyes, physically struggling not to grab her and devour her neck instead of only her wrist._

_A moment later he feels the cool mouth of Selene on his, and the blood that tainted it._

* * *

_His head throbbed from the sudden flash of memory from Selene's blood-soaked kiss._

_He doesn't open his eyes but in front of him now, there was no Selene, nor was the dark, fire-lit chamber of hers where they stood together just seconds ago. No, in front of him was a…creature._

_It was human in essence but its dark, rippling flesh glowed a metallic sheen, a look closely resembling a sculpted figure made by artists of the past. But this one was alive. And he was neither vampire nor lycan._

_There were two thoughts ringing in his head, one of shock, and one of awe. Michael believes Selene thought the latter, as he was seeing all of this through her eyes._

_It took Michael a moment to realize he was looking at his own self in the form of the hybrid._

_He wills himself back to the present. Staggering down into the floor, he looks down at himself. Selene's blood dripped from his mouth down to his white shirt. "Shit."_

_Michael sees Selene bending down to him, touching him gently on one arm. The opened slit on her wrist has long been healed now but as his eyes look up to her face, he was horrified to see her neck full of blood._

He had bitten her.

_"Selene. I'm so sorry–"_

_"Sshh. It's okay." She says with a weak smile, as she reaches out both hands to the buttons of his blood-splattered shirt. "You need to change. We're going to be late."_

_After undoing his upper garment, she stands up and walks over to her wardrobe. She shrugs off her dress and it pools easily down the floor._

_Michael peels his eyes away from the sight and tries to calm himself down._

I'm a hybrid.

I'm a hybrid just like Eve.

* * *

The Present – At the Sundals' Headquarters

Fawkes has seriously fucked up.

_No, wait._

_Not yet._

But he will. Michael was there in the coven now, along with the others, he was sure of it.

If everything goes to plan, the lycan will return to them…changed.

Selene will indisputably feed him her own blood, sooner or later. She had a wise mind and a logical approach to things, but her heart… _Oh her heart,_  it will give in.

She will turn him back into a hybrid, reconciling once again his lycan blood with that of her vampire's.

_And then..._

Fawkes frowns, as he thinks of another possible twist happening.

What if Selene loses control and just forgets everything about being a passive participant of the war, and barges into their camp and slaughters them all, for turning her beloved lover into what he was now?

_No._  That won't happen.

_Their daughter will stop her from doing exactly that._

The commander smiles with his teeth bared widely.  _Now, if Smith does her part well_ …

He'd have both father and child here long before Selene could raise an abled army to save them.

The vampire Elder will die. All of them.

And human and lycan will conquer this world once again.

* * *

The Present

When Selene wakes up, she doesn't feel the cold anymore. Strong arms were wrapped around her blanket-covered body. Someone's heat from behind was warming her up into consciousness.

She smells him even before seeing his face.

She turns around the makeshift cocoon he has nestled her in overnight and finds herself – yet again – staring at a sleeping Michael.

They were both condensed on one side of the bed – Selene's preferred side – with the other wide open and very much unoccupied.

_Oh, you idiot._

He was still in his formal wear, with only the first two of the top buttons of his dress shirt undone. Selene reaches out one hand to playfully stroke his chest hair that peeked through his clothing. She kisses the cleft of his stubbled chin.

_You're going to be the death of me, Michael Corvin._


	13. The Only Man I've Ever Loved (Part 1)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own Underworld nor any of its beautiful characters.

Selene allows herself to have a few minutes to gaze at Michael's profile, while giving silent thanks to the Saints that no one was witnessing her blush – not even Michael himself – especially since she believes that her pale skin, dead as it was, would have no trouble giving away a slight tinge on her cheeks. She also allows herself to be...a woman.

_Just like our first time._

A woman who finds herself with a handsome stranger on her bed.

_Because that's what you are, Michael. Right now you're a stranger to me._

This thought doesn't stop her hands to be all over him however. She touches his chin this time instead of laying another kiss on it, her usually nimble fingers trace with unhurried zeal over his five o'clock shadow, to the edges of his jawline, and even lower…down to his overly exposed neck...

Selene stops.

Any other woman would devour that neck with kisses and it would be acceptable. But  _a vampire_  like herself…She closes her eyes, trying to control her now labored breathing and the bloodlust that was threatening to overpower even an immortal of her strength.

_This is why I told you to sleep in your own bedchamber, Michael._

She didn't need such sudden onslaught of both frustration and arousal this early in the day. There were a million errands to run, meetings to hold and a daughter to keep company.

Hell, the council hasn't even decided on the  _perfect_  plant to decorate the foyer's central balcony with.

_Why would the foyer even need a fucking plant?_

" _Because you've made this the most peaceful of wars and they have nothing else to focus their attention on, my sweet queen."_  She hears Varga's mocking voice in her head.

_Whatever._

She'd like to see Cassius welcome his guests with  _nightshade_.

Letting out a deep sigh, she opens her eyes and still doesn't get up from the bed nor untangle herself from Michael.

One of her wandering hands has now found its way back at the hairy plain of his chest. Biting her lip with one fang, she undos one, two...three buttons of his shirt before she could lose her nerve.

Michael gently stirring puts a hold to her ministrations however. Before Selene could completely panic, he doesn't wake, but only frowns and tightens his hold around the blanket that still enveloped her nakedness. The hybrid was still blissfully unaware of the vampiress who has been taking advantage of him and his wonderfully warm body.

* * *

Selene and Varga head to the wide, open field at the back of the Eastern Coven. The one where the Cornivus-strain hybrids, such as herself, Eve, and David, could get away from the dark walls of the castle and breathe in the sun, practice archery (one of Eve's favorite pastimes) or simply just…escape.

This was where Selene stays to watch the twilight break in the horizon, signaling the start of another day for the undead. Varga doesn't go out with her, only hides behind one of the pillars near the entryway while Selene sits on the stone steps that were still hot from being bathed in the last rays of sunlight.

She thinks of the only thought she ever lets slip past her mind whenever she's here.

It's the memory of the first time she gazed back at the sun after being burned by it for so long.

Michael Corvin had been with her then. He was with her to bask in the sudden glow, feel the sudden outpour of unbelievable warmth all over her skin.

_When he reaches her, the tears in her eyes flowed unbarred. She could no longer hold them any more than she could hold her emotions. He was alive. The reality of it was just now slowly sinking in, now when she's allowed an emotion that wasn't fear—fear for her life and that of Michael's._

_She meant to reach for him, to meet him halfway, but he was there in front of her suddenly. Everything about Michael was sudden—inevitable—but sudden. It was like realizing you're on the tracks a little too late. You know you needed to get off, the train will come—inevitably so—but you never leave your spot, not until the last second, not until your breath's let out all the air it can let out from the panic, thinking about the oncoming clash._

_He was an accident waiting to happen. He was a handsome face, caught by the woman that resided inside her cold, long-dead self, and_ suddenly,  _he wasn't just that. He was an enemy, a creature she trained all her immortal life to fight and kill, and_ suddenly _, and_ intensely— _an intensity that prickles her senses in silent denial, but also in silent recognition, one of 'Where have you been all my life?'—he became_ everything  _she wanted to live for._

_And when he cups her face and leans her head toward his, the touch of his lips was warmer and more real than the sun._

Standing up, she slowly traces her way back to Varga, still lost in thought, trapped in a memory…

Varga gives her a rundown of the matters that need attending to, unaware of her routinely walk down memory lane. Then he says something – an afterthought to him but something that successfully pulls her attention back to the present: "And oh...Corvin didn't sleep at his chamber last night."

Selene starts. She masks her face—and her voice, hopefully—with an indifference only she has ever mastered. "Oh. Really?"

"Yeah, I dunno where he went. I was too...Well, anyway, I'm not his babysitter. I just want to inform you that your Lycan lover was off to the Saints know where and—"

He stops talking and Selene could only imagine the wheels turning in his head as understanding dawns on his face. She doesn't know if she's annoyed that he now knows what's going on or if she wants to laugh at him. She settles for being cautious. "And what?"

"He went back to your room, didn't he?"

_Yes, and you could have stopped him._ "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Oh my god," Varga declares, amusement and exasperation in his voice. "You two have a  _15-year-old_  daughter and you're off behaving like a bunch of insatiable—"

"Hey," she says, cutting off the foray of colorful words that were inevitably going to come out of his mouth.

_Nothing even happened._

"Nothing happened," she continues, lowering her head as she fiddles with the straps of her collar with a sudden interest.

Her most trusted man has his arms crossed now and it was getting harder for Selene to fight back a... _giggle_  at the disgust on his face.

She turns her attention back to him and shrugs her shoulders. "We just…slept."

"And in the morning?"

"And in the morning what?"

"Oh, for fuck's—Don't tell me you didn't have rough morning se—"

"Michael."

And truly, Michael was behind Varga then and there.

"Hi." He says as a greeting, eyes solely looking at her, as he walks over tentatively to them. Upon closer inspection, Selene takes notice of the reddening of his face.

_He has overheard their_ ridiculous  _conversation._

Michael was also still wearing his clothes from last night but his hair...was wet.

He showered.

_Of course_   _he showered,_ a tiny voice in her head admonishes.  _What else do you think he did in the bathroom earlier, Selene?_

She catches herself staring a little too long and averts her gaze quickly.

_Damn that hair,_ she thinks _,_  realizing she was beginning to hate its short length a little less every day.

Varga clears his voice dramatically. "Hello, Lord Corvin."

Michael turns to him. "Err…Hi, Varga? Please don't call me a ' _Lord_.'"

"I don't make the rules,  _sir_ ," he says with a shrug, and continues with the same unnatural tone, "By the way, where were you last ni–"

Selene looks at him in alarm and then gives him a death glare, as she feels the twisting of nerves in her gut.

"…Never mind. I'll…I'll see myself out." He then turns to her, giving his queen a smirk before he leaves.

_Men...Why do I even bother?_

The fact that she was alone again with Michael doesn't lessen the annoyance she felt though, and so she gets directly to the point and asks him: "What are you doing here?" as soon as Varga turns to a corner and fully disappears in sight.

_How did you even know I was here?_

"Well," he starts, once more shoving his hands into his pockets. His cheeks were still red. "When I got to the shower this morning you were still asleep and...when I got out..."

"Oh." Selene says, calming down and getting a little bit distracted if she was honest with herself. "I was...I was running late meeting Varga here. To discuss…matters and...shit."

Michael gives out a light laugh. "Okay," then he smiles and asks, "So you haven't had breakfast yet?"

_I could have had earlier if I'd lost my sense of rationality._

"No. And I don't usually—"

"Great." He doesn't let her finish. "I'll see if Eve's awake now too so we can all eat together."

Again, without waiting for her response, he leans forward and puts a kiss on her cheek, much like he did last night, but this time he has one hand cradling her jaw as he lingers a bit longer to stare at her up close.

"Good morning, Selene," he whispers inches from her face, sounding almost as breathless as she was.

Selene raises a hand to rest upon his hand that was cupping her face, and that was when she sees him glancing down at her lips…before meeting her eyes again.

_...Shit._

Before Selene could make a fool of herself, he swallows and gingerly lets go, leaving a dumbfounded and still very much frustrated queen to stare at his retreating form.

* * *

(Later, at the Training Grounds)

Selene has been drinking. Again. The only way to get through this whole tribulation was to drink. Not blood, nor wine. This time it was the ridiculous vodka and coke combination. She had discovered herself that Varga was indeed telling the truth about certain types of food and drinks that the vampires can partake in. It was so good to taste some human delicacies again. She's been testing a few, cooking for herself, Eve, David and Lena—whenever the third Elder comes to visit her daughter. There wasn't a wide selection of what they can eat but it was nice to be able to do so nonetheless. What was funny though is that it was only Selene who can drink a whole bottle of alcohol without throwing up. And she's been taking advantage of this since then. Although one should be wise enough to not point out the fact that she was becoming an alcoholic if they know what's good for them.

"More," Selene says to Varga, sounding slurry as she holds out her cup for him to fill.

He obliges but with hesitation, which he doesn't fail to voice out to her. "I think it wise for this to be your last one."

Selene stops mid-sip and turns her head to look at him. Varga can be a pain in the arse sometimes but most of the time he's just irrationally overprotective. Even more so than David.

"I think it wise for you to stop being an old grandfather," she counters. "It's not doing favors to your handsome face."

"Oh, stop giving false flattery when it's clear I do not hold your highest regard today when it comes to—" He pauses and shamelessly nods his head towards where Michael was. "...beauty." He ends his teasing by giving her a smirk.

_Was she that unsubtle?_ "Varga..."

"I don't understand why you can't just jump him. He'll like it too, I can tell. That man hasn't seen a woman's breasts since the middle ages, I bet."

Selene restraints herself from informing him that no, Michael has seen another woman's breasts.  _Hers_  in fact, she thinks, blushing even more furiously.  _Just last night..._

_...Come to think of it,_  another thought occurs to her, making her frown in contemplation.  _Has he been with someone else besides her?_

_Three years was quite a long time..._

She shakes her alcohol-clouded head and turns to her loyal companion. "Must you be so vulgar all the time?"

"He just looks so miserable," he continues. "Which says you really were telling the truth about nothing happening last night."

They were both quiet for a while before Varga talks again. "And If I wasn't vulgar, I'd be boring. And you don't want me to be boring. You have David for that."

She can't help but giggle, and a loud one at that, causing more than a few heads to turn to her.

Selene never giggles. But she's been drinking, Varga is good company and Michael has never looked  _so good_ that it was all she could do not to throw every ounce of sensibility she had to the wind and just  _jump_  him, as Varga had loudly suggested.

She steadies herself and lightly slaps his arm before gripping it. "This wasn't a good idea," she hisses at him, all too aware now of the mad reddening of her cheeks and the heat that seemed to have settled a permanent residence inside her belly.

"Four refills ago, it stopped being a good idea, yes."

"Yes—no. I meant me being here. I'm supposed to hate being here, and I really  _do_  have little patience with large crowds."

"You don't hate large crowds you just don't like people looking at you, which is why this is your last drink, my queen." He speaks loudly when he addresses her, taking her cup away. Then he steps back three paces and gives her a bow and a wink before leaving.

And just like that she's his Elder again and he her most faithful Hand, dutifully obedient.

She can feel Michael's gaze on her without really looking at him. Everyone always watched anything she did or anything she was involved in, since their chances of witnessing it happened so rarely. Her presence here at the training grounds was itself a miracle. In fact, it was the very first occurrence. There was all the buzz and and a whole lot more fussing. Three of the  _finest_  Death Dealers had to bring  _The Elder's throne_  five stories down for Selene to sit on.

It was beyond ridiculous.

She didn't want Michael to see her like this. It was bad enough that he doesn't remember her.

"If it pleases, your grace." Varga was now on the middle of a makeshift arena the Death Dealers had for gladiator-like practice combats. He addresses her just as much as the crowd. "I'd like to propose a challenge."

The Death Dealers stop practice fighting at once and close in, listening curiously as they discarded their weapons onto the cold metal floor of the training grounds.

"Thank you for granting my request for you to join us here today," he takes a bow again to cheers and whistles.

Selene nods and waves a hand for him to continue, not trusting herself to speak coherently.

"Fight me and defeat me. That's it. Simple as that. The winner…" He pauses for effect. "…fights Selene, our great sovereign. Of course...granted you'll allow it, my queen?"

Everyone turns to her then.

_Oh._

Varga was good. He was  _really_  good.

Anticipation hung unexpressed in the air as the crowd awaits her answer. The coven always craved to be entertained. What can be more entertaining than watching the most powerful immortal alive fight? Bonus points if she's drunk. And she is. She very damn well is. She can feel it in her system. Her healing abilities were not immune to alcohol it seems.

Before answering, she seeks Michael's eyes briefly, unsure what she wants to see from those blue orbs.

His eyes on her gives nothing away and so she turns back to Varga and says: "Very well then."

He gives her another smirk as the crowd lets out a deafening shout of excitement.


	14. The Only Man I've Ever Loved (Part 2)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sadly, I don't own Underworld or any of its beautiful characters.

Michael watches the exchange with amusement and a bit of something—a lot, if he wasn't in such denial—he thinks will be his very own undoing. There was no need for him to be jealous. He doesn't have the right to be jealous, he doesn't have the right to…feel anything.

Well…can he be allowed to have one wish?

_I wish I could make you smile like that too._

Even in his own head, it sounded desperate and pathetic. And Selene doesn't need desperate and pathetic right now.

He looks around the room and realizes at once that he wasn't the only one feeling like an idiot.

Varga was close to Selene.

Everyone can tell he was the only man she let through her icy barriers. David she trusts, but not entirely,  _thank god for that_ , and their whole relationship had a strain—another good thing Michael was happy about. Maybe because the vampire was too…too in love with her, and doesn't even make an effort to hide it.

Varga on the other hand...

As if on cue, David enters the training grounds, with a woman with bizarrely white hair. He nods politely to a few curtsies, mostly from the female Death Dealer populace. The commotion from Varga's last announcement dies down for a moment as everyone watches David approach Selene.

* * *

"I'm sorry I'm late. Lena—" he stops shortly.

Selene couldn't look him in the eye but she knows his are staring right at her now.

"You've been drinking." He says to her. He bends down to look at her closely and gives Varga across the room a look of appraisal and grits his teeth. "Again."

"David, look—"

"I leave him for a few minutes with you and—"

"I can take care of myself." That shut him up. "And Varga is not responsible of me nor any of my actions. You know what, " Selene says as she stands up from her seat and fully faces David, "I honestly find it absolutely  _pointless_  for you to regard me as a queen and yet I never get to have a say over anything that involves  _me_."

"Selene. Please—"

"Save it for another day," she says firmly and walks down toward the center of the room. She removes her coat, and grabs a pair of leather gloves from one of the metallic round tables. She picks a gun at random after.

She looks up and notices Lena, nods her head toward her. The third of the new Elders smiles back.

"Change of mechanics," Selene addresses the room at large now, turning around the spot slowly. "Though it's as simple as before."

The room is dead silent, watching their queen with quiet fascination.

"Fight me, and defeat me. As a reward, the winner will train under my supervision."

That got them talking again a moment later.

"One on one?"

"How many sessions?"

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves," David speaks loudly over the sudden commotion. "If you think you can defeat Selene easily, you're all wrong."

"He's right," Lena adds on too, mouth curling into a kind smile. "There's only one man who's ever defeated her highness in combat who still lives."

Everyone turns to Varga, who had his arms crossed, leaning on one of the pillars near the raised platform. It was his signature pose. His eyes were fixed on Selene. It was the first time he was this quiet, then: "I cheated."

"Yes, you did," Selene starts. "But before that, I was already on my arse anyway." There were a few nervous laughs from the crowd.

"That may be so, your grace, but—"

"Just accept it as your victory," Selene counters, insistent. "Because it won't happen again."

This time Varga smiled so widely at her, baring all his teeth as the sides of his mouth wrinkle with dimples.

_God,_ Selene thought, feeling a sudden and unwelcome tug in her heart,  _why can't I just fall in love with this man instead?_

She steals another glance at Michael.

_Well, that is why._

He wasn't looking at her anymore though. His head was bent, fingers busy fiddling with the gun he held in his hand, almost looking like he was determinedly ignoring the rest of the world—determinedly ignoring her.

Selene has never hated a gun more than she did now.

"Before we start…Rules."  _No better time distract one's self than preparing for combat._  "You can use any weapon. For our Lycan friends, you can transform. Actually, anyone can do anything. The only rule is there is no rule. Why, you ask? Because in the real battlefield, there are none. Be as ruthless and unforgiving as your enemies. Let's begin."

Selene had imagined a more challenging turn of events—fighting was her default state as it is—and was sourly let down not long after. In three's, five's and more, both Death Dealers and Lycans attacked her, and every single one of them she had easily overpowered.

_These are the men and women bound to protect my daughter._

Another thought cuts through her unvoiced doubt.

_You are the strongest immortal alive. You're just overestimating everyone else, Selene._

After taking a strong jab at her face, from a fully transformed Lycan-Sundal soldier, and feeling absolutely  _nothing_ , Selene ends the fight by easily sliding a leg down her opponent's ankle, casual the latter to fall on his back.

"Are you all absolutely sure this is the best you've got?" She thunders over the crowd. The alcohol in her body was still present, the dizziness lets itself known when she wasn't moving fast on her feet.

Almost everyone in the room, however, were now either down on their knees, too weak to fight anymore, or has retreated to the shadowed walls, afraid to try and fail again.

_We're all seriously fucked up._

"Selene."

She had to admit she had forgotten all about Michael.

Turning on the spot to face him, her breath was caught in her throat for the very first time since the fighting began. Only he could ever take her breath away.

Steadily holding her gaze, he nods his head before slowly circling around her, all while curling his knuckles by his sides.

Selene couldn't help herself as she realizes what he was exactly trying to do. She shakes her head after a moment, smiling, then catches his eyes again.

Then she gives him a grin, almost playful.

_I'm not the most powerful immortal alive._

"Good," she says. "I've been waiting for you." And unknowingly she really had.

"You—" Whatever he wanted to say she doesn't let him finish. She runs to him in a haze, stops mere inches from where he stood, as her hands push his chest with such strong force that he's thrown off his feet and slams straight into a wall, boring a huge hole right through its metal surface.

As everyone gasps Selene counts silently.  _Expectantly._

_1, 2, 3_ …

A dark grey hand—shining a metallic sheen—with talons in place of normal fingers, reaches out and grips one curved side of the hole.

_I'm not the most powerful immortal alive,_  she thinks again with another smile.

_Michael Corvin is._

* * *

(Earlier in the day)

"How are your wounds, father?" Eve asks Michael as they make their way over to the kitchens.

"I don't feel them anymore, Eve. Thanks again." He doesn't tell her that her mother's blood did more than made him remember who he was—what he was—it had also healed the gashes on his back, the ones David's whip had marked deep into his skin. Selene's blood had them healed in seconds.

He had just fetched his daughter from her bedchambers and it struck him how bright and cheerful she was this early in the day. She was such a contrast to her mother, who was also walking with them at Eve's other side. She appeared to have followed Michael not long after he left her with a good morning kiss, a kiss that took all the nerve inside his body for him to do.

_You've really pushed your luck with that one, Corvin. Slammed it hard to a wall._

"You're welcome," Eve's soft voice cuts through him. "How's your sleep, mom?" She now turns to Selene.

Michael braves a sidelong glance at her then, gauging if their recent 'encounter' affected her as much as it had affected him.

And as usual her face bore no expression to whatever she was thinking or feeling.

_What else did he expect really?_

"Fine, love," she says to their daughter, looking straight ahead, and not even turning to Eve when she adds: "What do you want to do later today?"

Michael looks down, feeling pathetic and quite… _angry_  if he was honest with himself.

How he had managed to make her fall in love with him years ago was beyond him.

Had it been this difficult? Had it been like climbing an invisible mountain— _one hell of an icy mountain_ —without really knowing what's waiting at the top?  _Do I even want to know what's at the top?_  Had it been this… _impossible?_

But then again...

_She wants him._

_She wants me, damn it,_  that much he has gathered. She also  _cared_  for him, yes. Undoubtedly. The gossip all over the castle about 'Selene's fury' and what she had done to David had reached him and eventually gave him a feeling of…something. No, wait…

It gave him  _power_.

A power of knowing that  _he_  made her do that…That  _he_ —bloodied and hurting—had made her lose control…From that there was a shock of electric yearning—one he didn't know he could possibly feel—pressed into his very heart. If that act, if that  _undoing_  of Selene because of him didn't say " _I love you,"_ in all the manners language was concerned, in all the truth she's left unspoken to him, then he doesn't know shit about love.

Nor about her.

Except he really does know.

He knows it from the bruising first kiss she gave him, from her letting go just when they were in too deep, almost as if afraid of drowning with him—drowning from him. He knows it from that brief glimpse she let him have, the one where he got into her head and into her heart, seeing himself through her, and sharing her feeling of awe and wonder and…love mingled with painful guilt, as she gazed at him—at the monster she had created just to save his life.

_She loves me._

And this he accepts as true.

Another thought follows the first, not necessarily challenging its validity so much as shaking its uneven foundation with a hard truth:

_But she also doesn't want to be with me._

Harder still, a concluding realization hits him, knocking him off fantasy land once and for all.

_Not then...and not now._

"…So really, mother, I won't be on your hair today. I'll be reading in the library."

He hears her daughter's voice from the end of a long tunnel.

"Have you seen the Grand Library, father?"

It takes him a while to realize she was talking to him again.

"No."

"Do you want me to take you?"

Taking a pause before answering, he looks down at her, solely at her—he couldn't look at Selene, couldn't bear to see the confirmation of his recently realized fear etched in her hard, impassive face.

"I'd love that very much, Eve."

* * *

"I'm done eating. May I be excused, mother?"

Michael doesn't mind his daughter asking for her mother's permission instead of his. It was habit he supposed, that, or because she was more than just her mother, she was the goddamned  _queen_.

"Go on then."

Eve stands up, kisses Selene on the cheek, then turns to him briefly before leaving. "I'll see you later, father."

Michael and Selene were alone together again.

They were seated opposite each other—Eve was sat earlier at the end of the long table. He has long finished eating, not really having the stomach for another drink—he still hates the taste of blood on his tongue, no matter how his body craves it almost all the time.

Silence lingered around them save for the clicks and clatter of Selene's silver and her mouth chewing the raw meat of a deer.

"How old is she?" He asks her then, not being able to bear the deafening silence any longer.

"She's turning 16 next month." She says before taking a sip of her drink.

If he was drinking, he most certainly might have choked on his. "16?! Wow..."

"Yeah."

_Jesus Christ._

He slumps on the backrest of his seat, deflated. He struggles for words to say. "16 years. And I…I wasn't even—"

Selene stops eating then. She looks up and holds his gaze, softening. Reaching out a hand over to him, she says, "Don't beat yourself up, Michael." Her thumb caresses his skin slowly. "We were both robbed off of the chance to be there for her and watch her grow. To be proper parents."

They were silent for a while. But he was all too aware of her hand not yet leaving from his. It was a gentle hold, unassuming, but he appreciates it—coming from her—all the same.

"You never asked me why I'm here." He tells her after a while.

"You don't even know why you're here."

He wasn't expecting that.

"What?"

She lets go of his hand then.

"You were given orders to surrender, am I right?"

"I…Yes."

"And you were told to gain my trust."

"Yes, but I never planned on—"

"Don't worry. I know, and  _they_  know you won't hurt me nor Eve."

Somewhere in the back of his mind, there was a faint click...but he was still very much confused. "What?"

"They know who you are," Selene says patiently, now leaning forward. "—who you were—before they made you their soldier, Michael."

They were staring at each other now. He was silent as he lets her continue. "What I want to know is why they'd let you go. Why did they let you come back to m—us."

Michael still couldn't speak. It wasn't because he had nothing to say, it was because a dozen questions were suddenly popping into his head right now and if he asks her..even just one…

_She needs to let this all out._

"But they are operating on a false assumption."

"What do you mean?" He asks patiently.

"Do you know how old I am, Michael?"

She turns a hundred years older right before his eyes then, the moment she asks him that question.

She didn't really, but the weight of what that certain question meant hung in the air around them, settling on Selene's beautifully youthful face, making her look older. Making her look her real age.

"I'm old enough to have fought fire with fire," she says, voice taking on a lower tone. "Fought revenge with the avenger's own blood, and foolishness with steel that burns more than the sun."

He realizes that she was talking about her past life. Her life as a Death Dealer.

"They're after Eve."

For quite possibly the first time since he came, he was seeing her in a new light. Right now, Selene, the Death Dealer, the most powerful of the Vampire Elders, was, right now...

A mother.

"And for that I will give them exactly what they want. If they want war then I'll give them war. They just won't see me coming."

Silence again followed her open threat. Not to him, but everything he knew these past years he wasn't with her.

_Does she see me as an enemy?_

"Michael."

He starts. "Selene."

"Can I trust you?"

They both know whatever he says now wouldn't mean much, wouldn't amount to anything but an empty promise.

_I don't even trust myself,_ he contemplates in secret.  _Not when I'm with you._

He does know—even if Selene still has her doubts—that he will do anything to keep their daughter safe. And so he tries his luck by telling her this.

"We have a daughter, Selene. And if…If deep down, somewhere in your heart, you still…care…for the old Michael, then yes. You can trust that man. You can trust me."

"I…" She trails off for a second. "I'll do that, Michael."

A beat.

"But…I cannot trust the others who came with you."

_Of course._

_Everyone expected nothing else._

"I understand."

"I don't want you to just understand. I want you to do something for me."

This time he looks at her, holds her gaze for a few seconds, willing her to understand that  _by God_ , if she told him to die for her then, he would.

This truth scared him.

"Anything," he says, meaning it.

One of her hands reaches out to him again. "I want you to forget your love for me."

A sudden coldness washes over him as soon as she said those words.

"I—"

"Listen, Michael—" She lets go of his hands then, stands up and walks around the table towards him.

Cupping his face now, she says to him both very gently and very firmly: "What you're feeling right now is…confusion. We have a child together and I…I kissed you and made you hope that there was something in our past that somehow connected us and…"

He could only look up at her. His hands didn't even have the strength to hold her sides. The numbness in his heart has spread all over his body.

"But believe me, Michael," Selene continues. "As much as I've come to love our daughter, we didn't ever plan on having her. We were hunted, years ago and...until now."

He closes his eyes.

"We owe it to Eve to give her a life without some army hunting her down."

In silence, he lets go of her.

"Forget about me—about us—and focus on what really matters, and that is protecting Eve.

He lets go of the hope of being with her.

"...Can you do that for me, Michael?"

The sight that greets his eyes as he open them again were not what he had expected.

_This was breaking her as much as it was breaking me._

"Can I ask you something?"

Her hands let go of him as she says very softly, "Of course."

"Did you love me?"

He can't decide if he wanted to hear a lie or the truth. But before he could make up his mind and say anything, Selene gives him her answer.

"You were the only man I've ever loved."

He knows then that she was telling the truth. He knows it from the pause she takes in between letting out a deep breath and giving him the saddest of smiles.

She was telling the truth, alright.

But Michael now instead finds himself wanting a lie.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No Sundal yet again, I'm sorry! And I'm not gonna say they'll be in the next chapter. This story has been fighting for control ever since the 4th chapter and I've long given up trying to take the reigns again. I'm just letting the characters guide me into whatever the hell they want to do. Don't worry though. I removed one scene (yes, it involved a certain Sundal) from this chapter because well, it just didn't fit right into it. So certainly it will be in the next one.
> 
> As you can tell (hopefully), I want this scene to centrally be all about Michael. The Michael from the past, the present, and the Michael Selene wants in the future. (And what she wants is stupid I KNOW but hey, she needs a soldier right now, not a lover.) I hope I was able to show all of that in this chapter.


	15. It's Not About Love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who still reads and patiently waits for the next update of this fic! I’m so sorry for the delays. Life is happening so much at the moment.
> 
> Disclaimer: I don't own Underworld nor any of its beautiful characters.

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" _Selene."_

_She had to admit she had forgotten all about Michael._

_Turning on the spot to face him, her breath was caught in her throat for the very first time since the fighting began. Only he could ever take her breath away._

_Steadily holding her gaze, he nods his head before slowly circling around her, all while curling his knuckles by his sides._

_Selene couldn't help herself as she realizes what he was exactly trying to do. She shakes her head after a moment, smiling, then catches his eyes again._

_Then she gives him a grin, almost playful._

I'm not the most powerful immortal alive.

" _Good," she says. "I've been waiting for you." And unknowingly she really had._

" _You—" Whatever he wanted to say she doesn't let him finish. She runs to him in a haze, stops mere inches from where he stood, as her hands push his chest with such strong force that he's thrown off his feet and slams straight into a wall, boring a huge hole right through its metal surface._

_As everyone gasps Selene counts silently._ Expectantly.

1, 2, 3…

_A dark grey hand—shining a metallic sheen—with talons in place of normal fingers, reaches out and grips one curved side of the hole._

I'm not the most powerful immortal alive,  _she thinks again with another smile._

Michael Corvin is.

_._

_._

_._

"Did I hurt you?" Michael asks, already knowing the answer.

"No."

He nods at her turned back. They were the only ones left in the Training Room now, both still slick with sweat and trying to catch up with their normal breathing. He regards her through the dark, wet hair that hung just above his eyes. Her attention was on the weapons. She examines one after the other, then laying them on one of the round metal tables, pretending to organize them — in what order Michael could only wildly guess. He himself was also pretending to give a shit about what she was doing by remaining silent and just standing guard behind her, waiting for her.

And he was still in his hybrid form.

His senses were so sharp right now. Every move, every sound and smell, and every  _feeling_  he felt so intensely at this very moment that he suddenly wants to crawl out of this very skin — this skin that's so new to him and yet feels so familiar, so real.

"How about earlier?" He tries again, distracting himself from how ten times more  _stunning_  Selene looked in all black.

_Just like her hair,_ Michael thinks, falling more hopelessly in love with her by the second.

Her hair that was so much just like  _his_  hair right now.

He drops his wandering gaze and soon realizes that staring at her strapped boots was no good, too. They were as sexy as every inch of all the leather she's wrapped around in.

"No," Selene repeats.

He sighs and restraints himself from reaching out and touching her, from telling her how stupid they both were acting right now.

_You can't ignore me forever, Selene._

"Is 'no' the only thing you can say?"

There was a nervous pause before Selene gently puts down a particularly strange-looking gun. Then with both arms she hurls the array of weapons she's been neatly arranging for the last half hour right off the table. They all fell with loud clangs that reverberated across the silent room.

Michael takes a few steps back and could only stare at her. He was surprised not to feel any kind of fear in her presence then and there. Anybody else would have bolted out of the room in an instant.

Selene finally turns to face him.

Her eyes were magnificent white and he finds himself forgetting to breathe.

_Jesus Christ._

Before he could reacquaint himself with seeing white in her eyes again instead of her vampire blue, she moves with impossible and near invisible feat to stand right in front of him, closing the distance between them faster than any mortal's eyes could see.

Their faces were almost touching now.

"No…" She says very softly this time, breathlessly, very much unlike her — the  _her_  he was so used to encountering. She says this while gazing straight up at his eyes, blinding Michael with those striking orbs. Then, slowly, and looking almost  _guilty_ , she glances down — down to his lips. Still sounding breathless, she mutters:

"My mouth really isn't up to talking right now."

* * *

Later, when asked, Selene would disregard this as their second kiss. Just because of the simple fact that it was so much more. It was almost  _animalistic_  in nature, the way she clung to him now, kissing him within an inch of his immortal life. Hands alternately raking through his long hybrid hair and clawing at his bare back, pinching and leaving crescent moon marks on its gray smoothness. She pulls away with a gasp for a second, then pushes herself up using his shoulders as leverage. Understanding what she wants, Michael helps her, holding the back of her thighs to support her ascent, hands locked around her legs in a death grip. Both seek the other's lips again in a searing kiss after. The force of their clash results in his back slamming on the cold metal wall, but neither of them takes notice. Not even Michael himself.

Taking advantage of how she towered over him now, she devoured his mouth with renewed enthusiasm, using both hands to push strands of his now jet-black hair away from his face. Then cradling his head, she kisses her way from his mouth to his cheeks, up to his closed eyes. She goes all the way down again to his jaw and lower still...She bites his neck without warning, making Michael groan out loud, breaking the consistent outpour of their moans.

It sounded almost like a howl. It was unadulterated, unfiltered, raw from within his primal state.

She finds herself loving the sound.

She bites him again, still playful, still not drawing any blood but enough to reward her with another groan from him.

_I want you to forget your love for me._

Selene's words from earlier came unwanted and yet utterly expected in her mind. Like most rational musings she has concerning Michael, she ignores it.

_This isn't about love,_  she rebels against her own voice somewhere inside her head as she pulls away again.

More than anything right now, she wants to see  _exactly_  what she was doing to him.

Dazed black irises stared right into her white ones. With sudden, electric excitement, she realizes this was the very first time they got intimate when Michael's still in his hybrid form.

_This isn't about love_ , she thinks again, looking at Michael. Dark, strong, and  _beautiful_  Michael. With his admiring face bathed in a dark blue-gray shine. Gazing up at her now, he lets out shallow breaths from both the struggle of holding her up and controlling himself from tearing her apart. Because he can do it, she knows. She knows because that's what she's doing right now, too — restraining herself from hurting him, from  _marking_  him.

_Mine, mine… Mine._

And she's barely succeeding.

But she also knows it's taking less from him than it was taking her. There never was any fight in him.

_My pure, sweet, and soft and beautiful Michael._

Even being touched again and again by a darkness only she has ever brought to him, he had remained the man he was. The man she fell in love with. The only man she's ever loved and will ever love.

She caresses one side of his face and feels her heart constrict.

_This isn't about love,_ she reminds herself again, her inner resolve sounding weak this time. A tear falls on one cheek, down into Michael's face.

He loosens his hold on her legs and gently puts her back down the floor. One hand reaches out to her, a thumb wiping the lone tear away. The same hand moves across her cheek to the back of her head as he pulls her face to him.

She sees him close his eyes before leaning in and kissing her forehead. Gently. Ever so sweetly. So…  _Michael._

It was the most beautiful kiss he's given her.

He slowly reverts to his human form as Selene wounds her arms around him, embracing his warmth.

She cries silently into his chest.

Michael doesn't say anything for a while, just holds her, and kisses her hair softly again and again.

* * *

"Tell me how you defeated Selene."

Varga chuckles before planting a kiss on Katie Smith's neck. "That's restricted information," he murmurs at the smooth expanse between her neck and freckled shoulder.

"Modest all of a sudden, are we?" She giggles. "Here I am thinking that's the golden anecdote you tell every girl you want to sleep with."

He faces her and playfully brushes her nose with his own. "Believe me, I don't plan on sleeping with someone  _like_  you."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

But they both really knew what he meant.

"Katie."

She sits up from the bed, letting the sheets fall off her barely clothed body. She moves to find her clothes from the floor of Varga's chambers.

"Katie—wait. I'm sorry—"

"—Save it, Varga." She's got her arms wrapped around her, a hurt expression on her face. "Save it for a  _vampiress_."

"I…" He tries again. "I'm not proud of what I did," he says, talking to himself more than her. "I almost killed Selene with it."

Katie froze.

"With what? I mean," she continues pacing around the room, crouching every now and then to find her Sundal garbs. "Is killing her even possible? She's—"

"I know, I know. But that  _nightshade_ —"

The flicker of something in Katie's eyes was enough for Varga to know the gravity of his mistake.

They were both silent now, turning strangers again. Much like the moment they first met each other.

Varga from the past would have clung to this, would have held onto this false sense of hope, the hope of loving a broken person enough for them to want to change. He doesn't hold on to that bullshit this time.

"Whatever you're planning to do, it's not going to happen." He says, losing his charming voice now.

"What are you talking about?"

"You'll never hurt her…

_She won't but you already have, Varga. You've hurt your queen. You've failed the only woman who's ever cared for you._

...or Eve."

Katie doesn't take her eyes off him while she dresses up. When she's done, she gives him a smile. A playful, knowing one. "Who said anything about  _hurting_?"

Then she leaves.

**Author's Note:**

> This story can also be found at fanfiction.net and has already a couple of chapters posted over there. I don't know why it was only now that I decided to post here as well but in doing so, I've had the chance to edit some of the chapters for the better. Please read and review if you like! 
> 
> \- Jill


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